Br. Arnold Palmer Passes

2016 continues to be a dreadful year of ceaseless losses of famous personalities from my own childhood. Word has come late yesterday that golf legend, Brother Arnold Palmer has passed to the Celestial Lodge at the age of 87. He was a longtime member of Loyalhanna Lodge No. 275 in his hometown of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and a 33° Scottish Rite Mason. According to a statement from his company, he died Sunday evening at a Pittsburgh hospital while awaiting cardiac surgery.

Brother Palmer was one of the first true celebrity golfers, known all over the world. Long before Tiger Woods, there was Arnold Palmer. He learned to play at the age of 4, and started his professional career in 1954. Throughout his lifetime, he would win 90 championships, and had his own platoon of dedicated fans nicknamed "Arnie's Army," who followed him from one course to the other to watch him play, and made the televised game of golf a popular programming choice in the 1960s. He was the first golfer to earn over $1 million playing the game. It's arguable that he was largely responsible for the popularity of golf for the last half century.

In 1997 when Palmer was made a 33° Mason in the NMJ, C. Fred Kleinknecht, 
then Sovereign Grand Commander of the AASR Southern Jurisdiction, penned a tribute to him. Read it here.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

RIP