Golfing legend Arnold Palmer is dead at 87

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Arnold Palmer

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Golfing legend Arnold Palmer, who won seven major championships and played in 50 consecutive Masters tournaments, died on Sunday, according to Golf Digest and other reports. He was 87.

Palmer won 62 tournaments on the PGA Tour, including four times at the Masters and twice at the British Open. Most famously, at the US Open in 1960 Palmer rallied from seven strokes down on Sunday's final round to beat Ben Hogan and a then-up-and-comer named Jack Nicklaus.

Palmer was one of 13 original inductees into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974, and he won the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009. His golf tournament, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, is held each year at his private club in Florida, the Bay Hill Club and Lodge.

Away from the golf course, Palmer is perhaps most famous of all for inventing his own beverage, the eponymous Arnold Palmer: half lemonade and half iced tea. ESPN featured Palmer himself concocting his very own Arnold Palmer in a commercial in 2012.

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The Arnold Palmer "goes well with everything from a cheeseburger to a liverwurst sandwich to a cup of soup," he once said.

Palmer's wife of 45 years, Winnie, died in 1999. In 2005, he married Kit Gawthrop. Along with Gawthrop, he is survived by two daughters and one grandson, Sam Saunders, who plays on the PGA Tour.

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