Arnie’s 20th tour victory was 60 years ago
On this date in 1960, Arnold Palmer earned his 20th career PGA Tour victory at the Insurance City Open at Wethersfield Country Club south of Hartford, Connecticut. In a sudden-death playoff, Palmer won on the third extra hole and went home with $3,500. It was Arnie on a mission as he won his seventh event of his milestone season and second Hartford title to go with his 1956 win. He progressed from 70 to 68 to 66 in the first three rounds but was still five behind the leader, Jack Fleck. But Fleck’s 71 in the final round let Palmer in with his eight-birdie 66 that thrilled 12,000 fans and gave the leaders a score of 270. Palmer had four birdies in an outgoing nine of 33.
Palmer and Fleck had a three-way playoff with Bill Collins, who was bumped out after the first hole when he parred and Fleck and Palmer made birdie-3s. Palmer had to make a 9-footer after Fleck, the infamous 1955 U.S. Open champion over Ben Hogan, had hit his shot to gimme range for birdie. Both Fleck and Palmer parred the long second hole before Palmer won with par on the par-3 No. 3. Fleck was short of the green, chipped to 4 feet and missed the putt. Palmer’s tee shot was 18 feet from the hole and he two-putted for par. The loss was the second in a playoff for Fleck in 1960, while Palmer avenged his playoff loss to Collins in Houston earlier in the year.
Upon Palmer’s passing in 2016, Lee Putnam, an ICO co-chairman in 1960, told the Hartford Courant of seeing Palmer’s popularity grow right in front of his eyes: “In 1960 Arnie’s Army was just starting to get rolling….You really could see his popularity here, though. The start of the Army. He had the biggest crowds and loudest cheers. This is where he won his first tournament in ’56 as a pro in the United States. He was the kind of guy every young, red-blooded young fellow wanted to be. He was good looking, the hardworking American boy. And boy could he play golf. It was his personality, the way he walked, talked and dealt with people.
“He beat Jack Fleck and Bill Collins in a three-hole playoff…but he had to get on a plane fast so he had to leave the clubhouse to be, I think, on TV on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ that night [Editor: it was actually “What’s My Line?”]. I told Owen Griffith, The Courant golf writer, to jump in the back seat and interview Arnold on the way to the airport. Owen was a traditionalist and said, ‘No, interviews should be done on tournament grounds.’ We laughed about it later, and Owen admitted he should have gotten in the car. Arnold had opened the door and was obliging. That’s who he was.”
More coverage of Palmer as the come-from-behind player was being written in 1960. One comment was, “It’s time to abolish that expression ‘Garrison finish,’ named for a jockey of the gay nineties, and substitute ‘Palmer finish.’ ”
The $3,500 Palmer won put him at $68,466.19, just $4,369.64 shy of matching Ted Kroll’s 1956 all-time record of $72,835.83, which was largely built on one victory, the World Championship, worth $50,000. Arnie would go on to break the record with $75,262. Palmer’s 1956 ICO victory, as it happened, was done in a playoff victory against Kroll.
Palmer’s result: 70-68-66-66—270, 1st, $3,500, defeated Bill Collins and Jack Fleck in three-hole, sudden-death playoff. Wethersfield Country Club (71, 6,568), Wethersfield, Connecticut. Palmer had a T-10 finish in the August 3 Pro-Am (68, $83).