The ultimate player
WHEN GARY PLAYER rolls up Magnolia Lane this week to play a record 51st time he will do so with the same vim and vigour at 72 years of age that saw him to three victories in the prime of his life.
The South African got his first Masters invitation when his father wrote a letter of introduction for the young golfer to the tournament’s co-founder and Augusta National chairman Clifford Roberts in 1957 at the age of 21.
Four years later Player was pulling on a green jacket for the first time, the first non-American to do so, and he enjoyed that experience again in 1974 and 1978.
This year, on the eve of the tournament, he will receive the Jim Murray/ASAP Sports Award at the Golf Writers Association of America’s Awards Dinner and, just as he has been in the interviews he has done with the golfing press to mark his record-breaking appearance, he will no doubt be as forthright and peppy as he has ever been; whether he is recalling his illustrious career, talking about his concerns for people’s fitness, or addressing once again his controversial claims about the prevalence of performance-enhancing drugs in the game he loves.
Whatever he does, Player cuts an impressive figure, even to those who have spent more time than most around one of the golfing greats. Only a fortnight ago, as he prepared to make his Champions Tour debut at the Ginn Championships in Florida, Ian Woosnam could only marvel at the longevity of the South African.
“It’s mind-boggling,” said the 1991 Masters champion from Wales. “I’m 50 years of age and he’s played there 51 years. To beat Arnie’s record is amazing.
“I just saw Gary down in the locker room and he’s so fit, and so full of life and is he excited about playing golf. I’m sure when I’m at his age I won’t be excited as much as what he is. I’ll just be happy just to be walking around and just be glad to be watching other people. But Gary is out there, he’s such a great ambassador, for the foreign players, and to have a chance to play at Masters for 51 times is incredible.”
Player himself never imagined he would still be playing at the Masters. After his third Masters win, in 1978, he said: “I won’t do what Sam (Snead) does. I won’t play in any golf tournament that I can’t win. I’ll go to my farm.”
Thirty years on, and despite shooting a 77 last year in the second round of the Masters that was as good or better than 38 players, including Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott and Steve Stricker, even Player accepts he is no position to win a fourth green jacket. So why will he be there?
“Well, you know,” he mused, “Winston Churchill said ‘I’ve never gotten indigestion from saying the wrong thing’. He also said ‘Change is the price of survival’. So we all change and say things at the time that we think are important, and then we (recant) later.”
If nothing else, the superfit Player keeps turning up to prove that staying active is a model all people should strive for.
“I’m not out there to beat (Palmer’s) record,” he told Golf Digest. “I want to show people about fitness. I think, I know, I’m the hardest training athlete in the history of the game. I love young people and want to see them stay healthy.
“In my humble opinion, obesity is the biggest danger in the world today. I want to show them how they can live longer and keep sharp. Adults, too, instead of fading away like old farts.”
He warmed to the theme saying: “My great dream today, if I can, is to influence at least 100 million young people in the world to eat properly and exercise, because the kids are eating absolute crap. They live on pure crap.
“My son, Wayne, has diabetes. He’s a Type 1. I reckon in 40 years time, unless there’s a miraculous medical discovery, there will be 100 million Americans with diabetes. It’s not a disease anymore, it’s an epidemic. I see a great deterioration in children, and it really perturbs me. We’ve got to look after our young people, got to educate them.”
Player points to world number one Tiger Woods’ priority on fitness as a major factor in his continued and increasing dominance of the modern game.
“Tiger exemplifies something that I have believed in: Your health is still the most important thing that you have.”
That said, he conceded: “No-one outworks Tiger in the gym. It’s amazing.”
Player, though, fancies his chances against a slightly older generation, declaring without a trace of facetiousness that: “I could beat the majority of the world’s 40-year-olds in a fitness contest.”
Given that statement, it came as no surprise that last year, when Player claimed at the Open at Carnoustie that at least one professional golfer had admitted to him that he had used steroids, his allegations were taken by many as just another example of the South African’s hyperbole.
Compatriot Retief Goosen’s response at the time was to challenge Player to name names.
Almost nine months on and Player is still happy to explain.
“I’m trying to make sure golf stays a clean sport. Because in most other sports (doping) is so prevalent. You see it happening in track and field, the Tour de France, in baseball. I did not go into the press tent to talk about it. But the question was put to me: ‘Was I pleased that the World Golf Foundation was going to come out with a drug-testing program?’ And I said, ‘I’m very happy about that.’ And then they said, ‘Well, do you know of anybody who takes (performance-enhancing drugs)?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’
“I told the truth. I think that’s what people want you to do — tell the truth. I had two (players) come to me and say, ‘We’d like to discuss this with you, but will you give us your solemn word you would never discuss it with anybody?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I give you my word.’ And they said, ‘We’ve tried these growth hormones. What do you think?’ And I said, ‘I think you shouldn’t. It can only do you harm. There are athletes dying all around the world. Don’t you dare try any of this until we know more about it.’”
Pressed on whether he would ever name names, Player insisted: “I would never even give a hint because I’d be going against my word. This is what Retief didn’t understand, and understandably. He didn’t have the true story. There’s a lot of naivete among athletes today, and particularly among golfers.
“People are being naive by not recognising this. I was able to contribute to golf by publicising this, and Dick Pound (head of the World Anti-Doping Agency) praised me for it.”
Player will also experience praise this week at Augusta National, but more for his own achievements at the Masters than his opinions, however valid.
Asked for his finest Masters moment, Player said: “Augusta’s been a great hunting ground for me. I hold the record for most consecutive cuts made (23, jointly held with Fred Couples). I have 15 top-10s. But if I had to pick one highlight, it was shooting 30 on the back nine in 1978 to win by one.”
Player fired a final round 64, including seven birdies on the final 10 holes, to rally from seven strokes down to defeat Rod Funseth, Hubert Green and defending champion Tom Watson by one shot.
“I was very much an extrovert when it came to being behind because in my 163 career wins I guarantee you there were at least 15 tournaments where I was six or seven behind and went on to win. I won the British Open when I was four behind. When I played Tony Lema in the World Match Play, I was 7-down and I won.
“So before that round my son, Wayne, said to me, ‘Dad, I’ve never seen you play so well and you’re not holing many putts. Hole some putts today and you could shoot 65 and win’. Turns out, 65 would have tied. So for me to shoot 64 with a bogey on No. 9, that was my highlight.”
Player’s original victory was in 1961, when Arnold Palmer lost the lead at the 72nd hole with a double bogey. The incident led to many observers suggesting the American lost that Masters rather than Player winning it.
“Everybody saw (Palmer) on 18, so this is the conclusion they all came to, particularly because Arnold was such a popular man. But when I played 13, I hit my drive to the right and had a big gap in the trees to go up the 14th fairway. I could have hit a 7-iron up there. Then I could have taken a sand wedge and might have birdied the hole.
“But I couldn’t move the people. I was an inexperienced young man. If that had been Nicklaus or Tiger Woods, they would have just sat down until everybody moved. But I thought, ‘I better not do that’. I felt uncomfortable. I should have just sat there. Instead, I tried to chip it back on the fairway. I chipped it into the creek, and got a 7. Then I made a 6 at No. 15. But because Arnold Palmer made a 6 at 18, everybody forgot about (how I recovered after) my 7 and my 6.
“One of the things that I’ll always be grateful for is Sports Illustrated, because they said, ‘Gary Player won the Masters’. They got it right.”
Nineteen years after the first of his major victories, 42-year-old Gary Player achieved his ninth, and what was to prove his last, joining Ben Hogan in third place on the all-time list behind Walter Hagen’s 11 and Jack Nicklaus’ 14 at the time. In what remains the second-biggest last-day comeback, Player recovered a
seven-stroke deficit with a course record-equalling 64. He birdied seven of the last 10 holes.
In contrast, the week also saw Japan’s Tommy Nakajima take 13 on the long 13th, the highest score at any hole in Masters history then.
The 11th, 12th and 13th holes are known as “Amen Corner”. The description was used by American golf writer Herbert Warren Wind in 1958 and was taken from a jazz recording entitled “Shouting at Amen Corner”.
Twice winner Seve Ballesteros used the name when he formed a company promoting golf events.
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