5 Athletes That Changed Golf Forever
Golf is played by individuals, and the personalities involved have an outsized influence on the sport. Over the years, a few standout players have made a huge impact on how golf is played. These five stars especially helped shape golf into the game it is today.
Arnold Palmer
Arnold Palmer was The King, and he was golf's first TV superstar. Palmer was lucky enough to be an amazing player during the golden age of television, and his multiple wins put his name into millions of homes. In addition to being a highly skilled and graceful player, Palmer had a sympathetic backstory that connected with fans on a personal level. Big wins and bigger publicity set the mold for what a golf superstar would look like for the rest of the century.
Jack Nicklaus
It comes as a surprise today that Jack Nicklaus was really unpopular in his early career. Fans actually booed his good shots and cheered when he made a bad one. This was partly bad luck. Nicklaus happened to be playing at the same time as fan-favorite Arnold Palmer, and he was seen as golf's equivalent of a wrestling "heel," or theatrical bad guy. Where Nicklaus shined was in pure performance. In his time, Jack Nicklaus won 18 tournaments and set records that still stand. Later in his career, his success built a following, and he even managed to win over some of "Arnold's Army" to a grudging respect.
Bobby Jones
Before Bobby Jones hit his peak in the 1920s, golf was thought of as an elite game that only millionaires played in their country clubs. Starting as an amateur, Jones not only brought the game to the masses, he also co-founded the Masters and personally wrote the rule book that almost every other tournament has copied and pasted ever since.
Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods hit golf like The Beatles on Sullivan. Like Arnold Palmer a generation before, Woods brought a TV-perfect personality and personal flair to the game that vaulted him to stardom and made a whole new generation of young people tune in. At a time when golf had a reputation for being a game for old guys, the 21-year-old Woods won the Masters with a record-breaking 12-stroke advantage. Endorsements and media notices further vaulted Woods into arguably pro golf's biggest breakout star.
Francis Ouimet
Francis Ouimet made golf American, and he set the stage for the other greats on this list. Born the child of Irish and French-Canadian immigrants, Ouimet's shock win at the 1913 Open was arguably the biggest upset in history. Ouimet's wild success in what Americans had always thought of as a foreign game brought golf to the American public for the first time and started a craze that has run for more than 100 years.