Palmer wrote this in his own book, Arnold Palmer: Memories, Stories, and Memorabilia from a Life on and Off the Course (2004), on page 52. The sentence opens a passage about reading as a boy about Bob Jones and Walter Hagen, and about the hero’s welcome Ben Hogan got for bringing home the Claret Jug in 1953 — which is the point of it: Palmer is explaining where the belief came from, years before he went and won the thing twice himself.
“I've always believed the British Open is one of the greatest championships in the world” Arnold Palmer, Arnold Palmer: Memories, Stories, and Memorabilia from a Life on and Off the Course (2004), p. 52. Verified by Quotle.info · Verbatim: “I've always believed the British Open is one of the greatest championships in the world. As a kid I read about Bob Jones and Walter Hagen and other Americans who had won the British Open (or Open Championship, as they call it in Britain), and I remember the hero's welcome Ben Hogan received after returning home with the Claret Jug in 1953.”
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Provenance
The source
Source
Arnold Palmer: Memories, Stories, and Memorabilia from a Life on and Off the Course
Published
2004 · Stewart, Tabori & Chang, New York · ISBN 1584793309
Page
52
Verdict
Verified — his own book, his own words
I’ve always believed the British Open is one of the greatest championships in the world. As a kid I read about Bob Jones and Walter Hagen and other Americans who had won the British Open (or Open Championship, as they call it in Britain), and I remember the hero’s welcome Ben Hogan received after returning home with the Claret Jug in 1953.
Arnold Palmer, Memories, Stories, and Memorabilia (2004), p. 52
The familiar quotation is only the first sentence; the rest is what gives it its force. We reproduce the short passage for identification and verification — the book is in copyright.
The sentence is given a named book and an exact page by Wikiquote’s sourced entry for Arnold Palmer, which cites Arnold Palmer: Memories, Stories, and Memorabilia from a Life on and Off the Course (2004), p. 52, and transcribes the full passage quoted above.
That volume exists exactly as cited. A library catalogue record gives it as Palmer, Arnold, Arnold Palmer: Memories, Stories, and Memorabilia from a Life on and Off the Course, New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2004, ISBN 1584793309 — see the Internet Archive catalogue record. The Google Books volume page returns the same title, author, year and ISBN. Two forms of the publisher are in circulation — Wikiquote’s citation gives Harry N. Abrams and the library record gives Stewart, Tabori & Chang — but the year and ISBN are identical, so both describe the same volume.
The claim the sentence makes about Palmer himself checks out: he won the Open Championship in 1961 and 1962, part of seven major titles in all, and was among the inaugural inductees to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974 — see his record. Wikipedia’s history of the championship adds the detail that he first entered in 1960 and finished second to Kel Nagle, and confirms the welcome he describes: Hogan was given a ticker-tape parade in New York after winning in 1953.
One limit, stated plainly: the 2004 book is in copyright and has no full view, so we confirmed the citation and the volume rather than reading page 52 ourselves. Nothing here rests on a wording we have not seen transcribed from that page.
The book was first published in 2004 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, New York, so it is firmly in copyright — nowhere near the 1931 cutoff for the United States public domain. The passage above is quoted as a short excerpt for identification, verification and criticism, not reproduced as part of the work.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Context
Why it mattered
When Palmer first played the Open in 1960 the championship was in an odd position: the oldest tournament in golf, and one much of the American field was skipping. Only four Americans had entered in 1959, the PGA Championship often fell at the same time and paid triple the prize money, and the larger American ball meant an adjustment on arrival. Palmer went anyway, finished second to Kel Nagle, and won in 1961 and 1962.
So the sentence is not a pleasantry about a tournament. It is Palmer explaining a conviction he formed as a boy in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, from reading about Jones and Hagen and seeing what Hogan’s 1953 win meant back home — a conviction he then acted on, in a decade when plenty of his peers did not.
He read about the Open as a boy, crossed the Atlantic when much of the American field would not, and won it twice.
Read the full story
Palmer’s seven majors were four Masters (1958, 1960, 1962, 1964), the 1960 U.S. Open, and the Open Championship in 1961 and 1962. He never won the PGA Championship, finishing joint second three times.
The men he names were the previous generation’s transatlantic travellers: Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones both won the Open in the 1920s, in the stretch of American success that ran from 1920 to 1939. Ben Hogan won the 1953 Open and was given a ticker-tape parade in New York on his return — the hero’s welcome Palmer remembers. The Claret Jug, first awarded in 1872, is the trophy itself.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1929–2016 · American golfer · seven majors · "The King"
Arnold Daniel Palmer (1929–2016), known as The King, was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania and became the player who carried golf into the television age. He won seven major championships — the Masters in 1958, 1960, 1962 and 1964, the U.S. Open in 1960, and the Open Championship in 1961 and 1962 — and was one of the inaugural inductees into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974. He first played the Open in 1960, finishing second to Kel Nagle, and won it the next two years — victories that Wikipedia’s history of the championship suggests were likely the first many Americans saw of the Open on television, and which, together with the growth of transatlantic jet travel, drew far more American entrants in the years that followed.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
The primary source (Chicago)
Palmer, Arnold. Arnold Palmer: Memories, Stories, and Memorabilia from a Life on and Off the Course. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2004, 52.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I've always believed the British Open is one of the greatest championships in the world’?” Last verified 12 Oct 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/ive-always-believed-the-british-open-is-one-of-the-greatest/