Gary Player celebrates his 80th birthday today and the nine time major champion shows no signs of slowing down, ever. The Black Knight had an amazing career with another fifteen PGA Tour wins, fourteen Champions Tour wins and an amazing 116 International wins.
He says he still starts his days with exercise which includes over one thousand sit ups. And he’s never shy with is opinions.
He chats, or should I say rants with Derek Lawrenson of the Daily Mail and Maggie Hendricks of USA Today.
Here are some opinions, gems and lectures from Player. Happy Birthday Gary.
“Let me tell you, Derek,” he begins. “Retirement is a death warrant. I remember in Britain a few years ago when you had that outcry when people were asked to work a year longer. Well, I’m 80 and I’m still the same as when I was 22. I’m still curious to learn, and I don’t believe in retirement. I want to die working.”
On the youth movement in golf: “Who’s going to win the most? Well, that’s impossible to answer. Who has the most ambition and desire as the years pass? I think Rory and Jason have the best technique but Jordan is so mature and clearly the best putter. What a short game, and that’s so important. When are all these experts who rave about length going to learn that 70 per cent of shots are taken from 100 yards in? So we’ll see, but it’s going to be great to watch.”
He is so proud of his world-wide victories: “I’ve definitely got the best world record of anyone, and that was my dream,’ said Player. ‘I won seven Australian Opens, and that’s still a record. I won the World Match Play five times in Britain, I won in South America and Africa and lots of times in America, of course. Are there any regrets? Not as such. But I was offered a million dollars a year by someone in 1961 with the proviso I live in America for five years rather than go back and forth. I refused, because I love Africa and the quality of life I enjoyed there with my family.
But I’d have won a lot more majors if I’d taken up the offer and stayed in America, and so there will always be that question in my mind of whether I should have said yes, rather than a regret.”
He keeps busy with his charities: “I achieved everything I wanted to in golf. I work on my ranch five months a year, which is my paradise. I have a great desire to help the young people of the world because even in a country like America, you can have 100 million people with diabetes in 40 years’ time. What is the best cure for diabetes? Diet and exercise! That’s my great dream now. To get this message out to young people around the world. Also, I’ve set myself a goal to raise $100 million for underprivileged people, mainly on the them of education.”
He was the first golfer to hit the gym: “You know how good I feel when I see young guys working out now? When I started it, nobody lifted weights. They saw me squatting with 325 lbs., and they came out and said, ‘Gary Player will never last. He’ll be finished when he’s 35.’ I won a tournament on the U.S. tour at 63! I used to go down to a YMCA and wait my turn! It was very difficult. I was flying around the world, and you had to find out where there was a YMCA.
Now, they have a traveling gymnasium on every tour in the world. They do everything to help these guys. It’s another world.”
Of course he chimes in on Tiger Woods: “It’s a very debatable issue. First of all, the man was the most talented man to ever play golf. I’m very careful about making predictions about a man who is so talented. He has an enormous mountain to climb. Three knee operations. Two back operations, and a few other things that have happened in his career. He had the yips in a couple tournaments.
He’s got a monumental task, but if anyone can overcome that, it’s Tiger Woods. I hope that he does come back and win tournaments, and win majors. Because when he plays, the barometer goes up. More people. More media, and the sponsors and the public are all there to see him play the way he used to. Only God knows, and it’s up to Tiger as well. But he’s got as big a challenge as anybody has ever had in the game.”
His legacy, not golf if he had his choice: “The big thing is, the great thing I would like to be remembered for, not for my golfing prowess, but a man who tried to help the world, who tried to help people who are suffering. When I was a young man, I suffered. My mother died. My brother went to war at 17 to fight with the Americans and the British. My sister was in boarding school. I struggled like a dog as a kid, and I said when — I never said if —I become a champion, I’m going to help people who struggle. That is my legacy.”
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