Arnold Palmer

Arnold Palmer, known to fans simply as “The King,” won seven major championships and helped popularize golf for a national television audience in the 1950s and '60s, building a fan base — “Arnie's Army” — whose enthusiasm helped transform the sport's popularity. He was a founding figure of the modern PGA Tour and remained one of the most beloved figures in American sports throughout his life.

Palmer's philanthropic legacy is anchored by Orlando Health's Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, which he and his first wife, Winnie, helped establish in the early 1980s after Palmer began visiting the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit. Over his lifetime, he donated more than $70 million to Orlando Health, and the hospital he helped build grew into one of the largest facilities in the country dedicated to the care of women and children.

Arnold Palmer passed away in September 2016 at age 87. In 2004, Westcoast Sports Associates presented him with the Roy Firestone Award, honoring a golf icon whose off-course legacy in pediatric healthcare rivaled his accomplishments on it.