Gary Player is one of the greatest golfers of all time. This week he sets yet another record: 40 consecutive British Open tournaments
GOLF: Paul Martin
IN 1955, a teenager called Gary Player turned up for his first British Open without booking a hotel room. The only one available at the coastal town of St Andrews, the Home of Golf, cost too much, so he had to sleep in his waterproofs on a sand dune.
His accommodation has gone up-market since then — now it’s a double suite at the Turnberry Hotel — but the little big man hasn’t missed one Open. It is of course by far a record, and Player loves breaking records, of any sort.
No one, he proudly points out, has won an Open title in three different decades — except himself. And he still will not entirely discount his winning the Open yet again. “In practice this week I got 12 birdies in the 36 holes. It’s in the back of my mind I have a slight chance. Strange things happen in golf. But you have to be realistic: It would be almost a miracle at my age. Everything would have to go right, including lots of luck and chipping and putting well. But I know I could do it in the right circumstances.”
One of the keys to his success and his longevity as a golfer lies in his supreme confidence, a quality he had in abundance even as a very young man.
“When I won the Open in 1959,” he recalls, “I was eight shots behind with the last two rounds to be played, as we did in those days, on the last day. I told my friend over dinner: ‘I feel very confident of winning. All I need is a stiff breeze’.” He got it, and he won the title. He still recalls with pride scoring two birdies on the 14th that final day, each with a drive, a 3-iron, and a single putt.
“I was so excited at winning I got to the prize-giving half an hour before anyone else. I just sat there soaking it up in my white jacket, white pants, and my red tie. It’s such a pity seeing some of the pros these days receiving their prize with a hat on and chewing gum. I think back to Bobby Locke, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus: they always dressed so well. They had respect.”
But Player is anxious not to convey the impression that he is an old- timer bemoaning the moral decline of youth. “There is nothing worse than finding someone older than yourself preaching to you. I make the point of not doing it to any young fellow unless he asks for advice.”
The “young fellow” most recently in Player’s ambit has been Ernie Els. They had previously never played together, though Player this year took time out to watch Els during the US Masters. This week the two men, accompanied by David Frost and Fulton Allem, had two all-South African practice rounds together, at Player’s suggestion, and the old maestro was mightily impressed with the US Open champion.
“Ernie is a very nice young man. Such a beautiful golf swing. Unlimited talent. It is great that he can be role model to young people coming up in golf.”
Despite his caveats, Player could not resist giving Ernie one piece of advice. “I said to him: ‘Stay away from all those teaching gurus. Very few of them can break 80 and they all have very different ideas on the swing. Why go and have a lesson from someone who can’t beat you?'”
Player has also made his acquaintance with Els’ parents, who have been at Turnberry this week. It evokes a sad memory for Player. “If only my mother could have been there when I was making it big. She died when I was eight, so I was deprived of that great motherly love.”
It is not like Player to sound maudlin, and he quickly returns to his positive track. “You know, what God takes with one he gives back with the other. I have had great love from my father, my wife and my family.”
In assessing his achievements, Player is also keen to stress that his eight wins in “majors” on the Senior Tour, since the age of 50, are of huge significance for him, and underrated back home. “My seniors’ majors titles have given me as much pleasure as my nine major wins on normal tour,” he asserts. He has not won, though, for 10 months, a fact he is anxious to correct in two weeks’ time at the British Seniors Open, which he helped to create.
Still, the list of “miracles” achieved in golf goes back to his younger days. “Winning the US Masters and the British Open and six other tournaments in 1974 was a miracle. At the Open I was five shots up coming to the last hole and won by four. Another golfing miracle was at Wentworth in the 1965 World Matchplay, when I was seven down with 11 holes left and five down with nine to play, and I still beat Tony Lima. I shot 65 in wet conditions.”
Though he won nine Majors, Player is convinced he would have captured several more, and numerous other titles, had it not been for the pressure he was under as a result of the anti-apartheid sports protests he faced during his career.
“The best tournament of my life I never won: the PGA in 1970. They threw three telephone books in my back at the top of my backswing. Ice was thrown in my eyes on the 10th. On the 9th I pushed a 14-inch putt two inches wide when a demonstrator yelled ‘Miss!’. They ran onto the green; they threw golf-balls between my legs as I was putting. I lost by one shot to Ray Floyd. Here in Britain, people would call me a ‘racist’ during tournaments.”
This sounds like an air of self-pity, or is it regret? But suddenly Player has switched gears. “Of course it hurts me, but what really hurts is that so many of my countrymen have of course suffered more. We were punished because a handful of people invented a system that was poisonous. Yet Russia with their suppression could compete.”
Nowadays, though, Player accepts that the sports boycott did have strong justification. “We deserved the punishment we got because of the terrible system we had. The important thing is: we must remember how the people who lived in the country under the system suffered. As President Mandela said: we must never allow racism again.”
Often condemned as an apoligist for apartheid in the old days, Player says it was a false impression, erroneously fostered by pictures of him playing golf with the likes of former prime minister BJ Vorster. “I played golf with the prime ministers of South Africa. I would have played with any premier of any country. It doesn’t mean I agreed with his system,” explains Player.
He confesses that, like most white South Africans, he had been “brainwashed” as a young lad into believing in apartheid’s “separate but equal” doctrine, but says he soon became disillusioned. He claims credit for initiating the easing of sports apartheid when he persuaded Vorster to allow Lee Elder, the black American golfer to play in the white-ruled Republic. “I would like to see President Mandela give an award to Elder as a mark of recognition for that breakthrough. Elder came despite tremendous pressure on him.”
If that suggestion suggests political naivete, Player is also fulsome in his praise for the “New South Africa” under Mandela, whose virtues he says he has already been propogating at no fewer than 12 addresses to business leaders internationally.
“I feel as though we have been cleansed,” he enthuses. “South Africa is blessed that we have a leader like President Mandela. Here is a man with flair, a man who has brought people more together in two months than was done in 48 years. There is no bitterness. There is no such thing as black power: He has filled his government with the people best fitted to do it. He has great love for human rights but will not tolerate lack of discipline from anybody.”
Player says it has been a revelation to him that there are “many brilliant black politicians whom people have only just learned about. That’s why I have so much confidence in our future economy and our country.”
These days Player is as keen on the business of rearing thoroughbred racehorses as he is on golf. “They give me equal pleasure,” he says. “And it benefits the economy too. Did you know that the horse business is one of the four leading industries in our country?” He is delighted to have bred one of the joint favourites, Broadway Flyer, for this years year’s Derby, though the horse failed him on the day.
He lists his attendance at the presidential inauguration, and taking part in a fully democratic election, as his other two highlights of the year – – so far.
Player has longer-term aims: one is to promote black education through school-building programmes especially in rural areas. He is already proud of the extremely well-equipped school he has set up on his farm near Johannesburg. He believes that besides education, housing and “how shall I put it correctly: a control of over-population” are the key priorities to underpin an expanding economy.
He also advises South Africans not to be disheartened by the apparently slow pace of international investment in the country. “Businessmen at home and abroad are starting to get confidence: they feel encouraged. Anyone who expects immediate investment is a dreamer. No one becomes a champion, in sport, in marriage, in economics, quickly. It’s so young. We must have patience.”
Another area where he hopes to achieve a breakthrough is in encouraging the development of “black lady athletes, like they do in America. I think we’ll have an explosion in track and other sports.” And naturally, he is trawling for a really talented young black golfer to turn into a world- beater.
This week he was delighted when a black youth came and shook his hand at Turnberry. Discovering that the boy was a South African and had a handicap of four, Player immediately offered him lessons.
Still, though, the most remarkable thing about Gary Player is that he still plays … and he does it so well. He attributes it to the patience and tolerance of his wife Viv: “Not many women would stay married to me,” he states.
“Secondly,” he continues, “I have been a physical fitness freak. When I started with weight training and heavy weight exercises, they said I would become muscle-bound and damage myself. Thirdly, watching my diet — trying to eat like an African not a white man. No excessive fats, eat more fruit and vegetables, roughage like bread … Avoiding the white man’s poisons: butter, bacon, sausages, too much meat.
“If I had to train a rugby team, I would put them on a completely different diet. Fewer braais, less meat,” says Player, despite being a cattle and sheep farmer. “The Afrikaner in our country has lived on high fats.
“Lastly, but not least, to keep going like I have, you also needed a strong faith.”
Though this is his 40th Open, the maestro is by no means finished yet. “It would be very fitting if I ended my Open appearances at St Andrews, where it all began in 1955,” Player informs. Does he mean next year, when the event returns there? Not a bit of it. He means the time-after-next, in the year 2000.