The man has so many positive attributes that it's hard to list them, but I'll try. In playing the game, he was fearless, confident, happy, inspiring and very attuned to his audience. In person, he was magnetic, supremely self-assured and welcoming. As a spokesman, he was sincere, trustworthy and authentic. But most of all, Arnold Palmer never forgot where he came from.
He was a Latrobe boy who couldn't swim in the Latrobe Country Club pool, even though his dad was the greenskeeper at the club. After he became famous and famously rich, nobody would've thought twice if he never went back to Latrobe. Instead, he bought the place and treated it like a treasure and gave back to the Latrobe community.
I've heard a version of the following story many times and it epitomizes this great man's central ethos: It is said that a younger player was utterly amazed at how many autographs Arnold Palmer gave. He was astounded that he would spend so much time shaking hands with the fans and talking to them instead of scurrying/hurrying back to the clubhouse. Arnold told him in so many words that those fans were paying for all of the prize money that they were playing for and that if the young man didn't want to be thankful for that, then maybe he should go get a different job.
On the several occasions that I had the opportunity to say hello to Mr. Palmer, I can only say that he was beyond gracious. I never did tell him that he won the first golf tournament that I ever attended: the 1963 Western Open at Beverly. I walked to the tournament with my dad and two of my brothers. The biggest crowd was around his foursome and I wondered why. "That's Arnold Palmer," my dad said. And I subconsciously became a member of Arnie's Army. We've lost our Commander in Chief.