Palmer Awarded Congressional Gold Medal for Promoting Excellence and Good Sportsmanship
Casey Cosponsored Senate Bill to Honor Palmer with the Medal
WASHINGTON, DC –U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) honored golfing legend Arnold Palmer today after Palmer was presented with a Congressional Gold Medal for his accomplishments and charitable work. Senator Casey was an original cosponsor of the Senate version of the bill to award Palmer with the medal.
“Western Pennsylvania has a long history of producing world class athletes and Arnold Palmer is one of the best,” said Senator Casey. “In 2009, I cosponsored the Senate bill to award Arnold Palmer with the Congressional Gold Medal to honor to his work and life on and off the links. Today’s awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal is a sign of Arnold Palmer’s complete mastery of golf and his place in history as one of Western Pennsylvania’s finest sons.”
In his professional career, Arnold Palmer amassed 92 championships; 4 in professional competition of national or international stature by the end of 1993 and 62 of which came on the Professional Golf Association Tour. Palmer has been the recipient of numerous honors including virtually every national award in golf and both the Hickok Athlete of the Year and Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year awards, and he was chosen Athlete of the Decade for the 1960s in a national Associated Press poll.
Palmer served as Honorary National Chairman of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation for 20 years and played a major role in the fund-raising drive that led to the creation of the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando and the Latrobe Area Hospital Charitable Foundation in his Western Pennsylvania hometown. The U.S. House of Representatives last month approved the recognition.
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