Golf · 1960 · Cherry Hills, USA
Arnie's Charge
Seven strokes off the lead with a round to play, Arnold Palmer drives the first green, shoots 65, and wins the US Open.
65
Final round
7 strokes
Deficit entering final round
Jack Nicklaus (amateur), 2nd
Runner-up
Arnold Palmer began the final round of the 1960 US Open at Cherry Hills seven strokes behind the leader Mike Souchak, far enough back that every golf writer in the press tent was watching somebody else. Over lunch he reportedly floated the idea of driving the short, downhill first hole, a 346-yard par-4, to a group of sceptical reporters.
He drove it. The eagle putt that followed set off birdies on six of the first seven holes, and the afternoon rearranged itself around him. Palmer closed with a 65, the lowest final round shot by a champion in the championship's history to that point, to win by two strokes over a 20-year-old amateur named Jack Nicklaus, with the 47-year-old Ben Hogan fading late after finding water on the 71st hole.
The gallery following him had a name already, 'Arnie's Army', and it grew louder all afternoon. Palmer was the sport's first television-age star and, for a generation, its most popular player, and this is the round that fixed both.
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