Arnold Palmer

Arnold Palmer, born on September 10, 1929 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, was an American professional golfer and golf course architect. He was called the King, and the crowds that followed him were known as Arnie’s Army. He won seven majors: the Masters in 1958, 1960, 1962 and 1964, the U.S. Open in 1960, and the Open Championship in 1961 and 1962. On the PGA Tour he won 62 times. In 1974 he was among the first group inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, and he went on to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009. He died on September 25, 2016 at the age of 87.

His first design was Indian Lake Golf Course in Pennsylvania, a nine-hole layout completed in 1967. In 1972 he set up a design practice with his partner Ed Seay, later renamed the Arnold Palmer Design Company. The firm has built more than 300 courses in over 25 countries, among them the course at Chung Shan Hot Spring in Guangdong, regarded as the first golf course of the modern era on the Chinese mainland. At Bay Hill in Orlando, Florida, which he owned from 1974, the tournament has carried his name since 2007 as the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

In Southeast Asia, what stands out is how often his work sits in the same club as Jack Nicklaus‘s. At Emeralda Golf & Country Club outside Jakarta, the River and Lake nines by Palmer opened in 1994, and the Plantation nine by Nicklaus followed a year later. At The Legends in Johor, Malaysia, a Palmer nine was added in 2009 to the 18 holes Nicklaus had laid out. Among the courses listed on GoGolf, four in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia carry Palmer’s name, and the following two can be booked through GoGolf.

Palmer courses you can book on GoGolf

• Emeralda Golf & Country Club (Depok, Indonesia) — the River and Lake nines, opened 1994
• Bangpoo Golf and Sport (Samut Prakan, Thailand) — opened 1991

GoGolf also covers Golf Graha Famili & Country Club in Surabaya and The Legends Golf and Country Resort in Johor, Malaysia, where the Palmer nine opened in 2009. Neither of these two is currently open for booking through GoGolf. Tee times and rates for a given day can be checked on each course page or in the GoGolf app.

See the other golf course architects here.