“I’d never been south of the Pennsylvania state line, but there was no question which way I was headed,” wrote Arnold Palmer, recounting his decision to attend Wake Forest University.

In the summer of 1947, Palmer’s good friend Bud Worsham wouldn’t stop talking about his full ride to what was then Wake Forest College: tuition, room and board—and you could golf all year.” That sounded great to me, almost too good to be true,” Palmer wrote in “A Golfer’s Life.” Palmer hadn’t given much thought to college, he said, and his family was in no position to cover the costs. Perhaps he’d just hang around Latrobe, make some money, or join the Army and then try to win tournaments. But just days before classes were set to start, Worsham convinced the school to give Arnie the same deal he had, and so Palmer stepped off the bus in North Carolina with his golf bag and a suitcase, and began one of the most important chapters in his life.

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