When $1-Million Career Was a Big Deal in Golf

Arnold Palmer won his second consecutive Los Angeles Open golf championship 32 years ago today to move closer to achieving a PGA Tour first.

At the time, no one had reached $1 million in career earnings on the PGA Tour (26 golfers did it last year), but the $20,000 he won at Rancho Park gave him $882,998.

It was his 48th PGA tournament victory, and he joined MacDonald Smith, Ben Hogan and Paul Harney as back-to-back L.A. Open winners.

Palmer won by five strokes, finishing 15 strokes under par, 70-64-67-68--269, one stroke off the tournament record.

Palmer finished in grand style, sinking a birdie putt on the final hole before a gallery of 20,000.

Second place, worth $12,000, went to Gay Brewer, who at one point on the last day was two strokes back. But Palmer birdied three of the last five holes to win going away.

Jack Nicklaus, after finishing in the money in 25 consecutive tournaments, finished a stroke out of the money, with a 286 total.

Also on this date: In 1958, Stan Musial got a $20,000 raise from the St. Louis Cardinals and became the highest-paid National League player ever at $100,000. . . . In 1943, USC beat UCLA in basketball for the 42nd consecutive time, 51-39. The Bruins beat the Trojans later that season. . . . In 1972, the Rams traded future Hall of Famer Deacon Jones, 33, to San Diego. . . . In 1950, in an Associated Press poll of sportswriters and broadcasters, Jack Dempsey was named the greatest fighter of the half-century over Joe Louis by a vote of 251-104. . . . In 1967, the American Basketball Assn., with George Mikan as commissioner, began play.