It emerged soon after I heard about the plans that none other than Arnold Palmer had signed up as a partner. The emotion I felt then was glee. This meant the project was genuine. It’s as current president, David Manougian, says: “As a brand and business he [Arnold Palmer] brought The Golf Channel instant credibility upon the launch of our network, and continues to be instrumental in helping us develop key relationships within and outside the golf industry.”

On January 17, The Golf Channel is celebrating its 10th anniversary. It’s been a hell of a ride. Today, fans of the game take the network for granted. If we want to watch golf, we don’t think twice - we sit down, switch on and enjoy the tournament coverage, regular programs and specials. And there are a lot of us who are doing so. According to a 2004 Neilsen estimate, The Golf Channel is now seen in more than 60 million homes. That means an astounding 89 per cent of the world’s golfers are tuning in at some point in a year. And the signal is going out to more and more countries. On November 22, 2003, golf fans in the UK were eventually hooked up with direct coverage and in June, 2004, the signal officially went out across the whole of one of the world’s great golfing regions - Scandinavia. Plans to extend the signal further are naturally being looked into for the future.

But the fortunes of the channel didn’t always look so promising. In an 1994 interview with Golf Week, Gibbs said that back in December, 1993, over a year before the network eventually launched, he was at breaking point: “We’d spent all of our original investment - about $6 million. The options on all our contracts were up. I’d been out there on the street for six months trying to raise the money we needed to make it a go and things weren’t looking very promising.”

Gibbs eventually went to Mr. Palmer, already his partner. “Here’s where we are,” he said. “Our options are we can shut this whole thing down, walk away and write off out investment, or we can go back out, get in deeper and give it one more shot.” Arnie, Gibbs recalled, “Just looked at me straight and said, ‘I don’t want to quit.’” That turned out to be a good decision.

Gibbs, an Alabama man, had met Arnold Palmer by chance a few months earlier. The former, not much of a golf fan at the time, had made his guest home available to one of the pros playing the 1990 PGA Championship at Shoal Creek in Birmingham. As fate would have it, that pro turned out to be The King, and the two struck up a friendship. That, Gibbs said, was all that was needed to change his mind about golf: “I saw through Arnold the greatness in the game. And following him round, I’d never experienced the kind of enthusiasm that people had for him and the love they had for him. It overwhelmed me.”

A year later, Gibbs presented his plans for a 24-7 golf channel to Arnold. His reaction was similar to many other people’s - non-committal and lukewarm. But Mr. Palmer eventually saw the logic in it. “I had some reservations, but I liked the idea very much,” he says. “Twenty-four hours is a lot of golf. I had to think about that. The more I thought about it - the more I deeply thought about it - I began to think it would work because there’s so many aspects of it you can use.” He eventually bought in on half of Gibbs’ initial expenditure to become co-founder.

At the time, Golf Week asked Palmer whether he was scared. He responded with typical resolve. “I wouldn’t say it’s scary, but it’s certainly something you can get excited about. If this thing goes the way we hope, and I think it will, I expect that I’ll be doing about two things in the future. One is building golf courses and the other is doing a lot of work with The Golf Channel.”

How right he was. And his role has certainly been recognized. “Arnold Palmer has been a great friend of The Golf Channel,” says President David Manougian, “and our ultimate ambassador.” The Golf Channel launched on January 17, 1994, with strong sponsorship agreements; agreements for carriage with various cable systems; and unique programming, including 23 domestic tournaments and 41 European and Australian events. By the end of the summer, they had televised their first PGA Tour event - the Deposit Guaranty Classic at Madison, Mississippi - and introduced their original instructional program - The Golf Academy Live at the PGA Show in Las Vegas.

Even by the end of their first year, it looked the like the channel was going to be a huge success - the subscriber count reached twice its year-end projection at 1.4 million and their advertising revenues were well above all their expectations. By the end of 1996, they had launched their own website, televised their first of many Senior PGA Tour event, brought Fox in on a $50 million equity contribution (sold, in 2001, to Comcast) and, with a partner, established the network in Japan. By that stage, 7 million people were subscribing - a figure that was to double by the end of 1997. At this point in their lifetime, the channel also started producing critically-acclaimed specials and documentaries such as Arnold Palmer: Golf ’s Heart and Soul. Come the end of the millennium, they had 30 million viewers worldwide.

And there were other projects they set up too - like the Drive, Chip & Putt cross-country tour they established for juniors of all skills and levels, and the Troubleshooters series that worked to bring some of the game’s greatest coaches (David Ledbetter, Jim McLean, Dean Rienmuth, Jim Flick, Rick Smith and Dave Peltz) into people homes.

In an effort to bring viewers “inside the ropes”, The Golf Channel is also responsible for some of the most progressive aspects of golf broadcasting in the recent history of the game, such as fitting Canadian tour players with microphones during tournaments and Buy.com Tour professionals with heart-rate monitors. And, of course, the channel is now “home” to the Champions Tour.

In 2002, the Golf Channel was named National Cable Television Cooperative Programmer of the year. That’s not surprising - much to the annoyance of my wife, it’s been a true American success story. Happy birthday, The Golf Channel, and best of luck for the future.