"The Golf Channel has brought golf to the forefront more than any single thing in the history of the game."

Fifteen years after its birth, Todd Jones looks at the rise of the Golf Channel and secures this rather audacious statement from Arnold Palmer. But if anyone can say it and get away with this, it's The King!

"The Golf Channel has brought golf to the forefront more than any single thing in the history of the game," said Palmer, one of the network's founding investors.

Jones also reminds us that it was Peter Kessler whose 1300 hours of on-air time helped give the channel so much of its credibility, and whose downfall was caused by something you'd like to think would not cost him his job under the NBC leadership (but then again...it was The King):

Kessler's tenure at the Golf Channel ended a year after he conducted a pointed interview with Palmer in January 2001, when Kessler challenged Palmer's endorsement of Callaway Golf's controversial ERC II driver.

Departing the network hasn't dulled Kessler's pride in his work there, his admiration for Palmer or his appreciation for the Golf Channel's growing success.

"It never occurred to me that it wouldn't work," he said.

Brian Hammons has a slightly different and probably more accurate take than Palmer on what fueled the channel's popularity.

"We got lucky in certain regards in that we started in January of '95 and Tiger (Woods) turned pro in '96," he said. "After Tiger turned pro, the popularity of the game went skyward in a hurry and we rode those coattails."