Not long after Deacon was giving lessons for the going rate of 10 cents for half an hour, Arnold began mowing greens and fairways and shagging balls for 25 cents an hour.

The son broke 55 for nine holes at age 7, broke 40 when he was 12 and shot 71 in his first high school match ? remarkably also at age 12.

"I started playing with the high school golfers even before I was in high school. And, of course, my objective was to beat everybody I played with."

The record shows that's almost exactly what happened.

What would become one of the most celebrated careers in golf likely got its traction in 1954, when Palmer won the U.S. Amateur at the Country Club of Detroit. He joined the PGA Tour in 1955 and won the Canadian Open. In 1956, he won twice more and the next year, he won four times.

Then, in 1958, Palmer won the Masters.

The lavish expanse of fairways, majestic rows of trees and the dangerous, rolling greens of Augusta matched up well with Palmer's trim waist, powerful forearms and the dangling cigarette from his lips. As it turns out, it was an enduring association, and also perfect timing—the advent of golf's entry to a new level of popularity thanks to Palmer's charisma combined with the clout of television.

Palmer became "the King."

"We'd all like to be Arnold Palmer, he set the tone for a whole generation of players, and we owe him a huge debt of gratitude," Fred Couples said.

Palmer played the Masters 50 times, the last occasion on a Saturday in 2004. The scene of him walking the uphill 18th fairway of Augusta National Golf Club for the final time was a poignant one. His red shirt and white hair stood out in bright contrast to the prevailing green backdrop. As his ardent followers in "Arnie's Army" cheered every step, Palmer choked back tears, removed his visor and waved.

During half a century at the Masters, Palmer took 11,248 shots in 150 rounds and played 2,718 holes, covering roughly 600 miles. Of the 93 players who started the 2004 Masters, 81 had not been born when Palmer played his first Masters in 1955.

Even though his Masters days were at an end, Palmer's reach had long before extended beyond the golf course and into the boardroom. Very early in the Palmer Era, entrepreneur Mark McCormack came on to organize Palmer's finances, and out of that arrangement grew the powerhouse International Management Group. It can be traced as the start of what has become the agent system, and along the way, Palmer's list of sponsors through the years has included everything from motor oil to tractors.

Player said that McCormack's first client list, of himself, Palmer and Nicklaus wasn't so shabby.

"Genius," Player said. "Can you imagine signing up your first three clients like that? And signing them up when they all came to the front?"

According to PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, the first may have been the most important. He said there has never been anyone to equal Palmer, and for a good reason.

"I always say that when golf and CBS and Augusta and Arnold Palmer came together in 1958 . . . that was the beginning of [the] modern golf era . . . the most charismatic figure in the history of the game."

That Palmer cut a dashing figure is an understatement. His good looks inspired a growing following of fans, and his uber-athletic, swashbuckling style of play cemented his relationship with them. Palmer took chances. Some of them worked out great, some produced tragedy. It was golf theater at its best.

Said Tom Watson: "Arnold Palmer and television were made for each other."