| Born: November 1935, Johannesburg, South Africa |
| US Tour wins: 21 |
| This
tenacious South African played
piggy-in-the-middle to Arnold Palmer and Jack
Nicklaus. That is not a flippant or derisory
comment but a recognition of how Player, the
physically small guy (5' 7") sandwiched
between two American giants, came to be regarded
as their peer. He was the third link in golf's
'Big Three'. He won the first of his three Opens
in 1959, the first of his three Masters in 1961,
the first of two PGAs in 1962 and his one US Open
in 1965. Even today, he believes he could win a
major championship. His strict adherence to a
fitness regimen throughout his career has meant
he is in enviable condition. He has sometimes
suffered from a tendency to overawing, but he is
still acknowledged as the master bunker player,
and he never gives up. On the way to winning one
of his five World Matchplay Championships, in
1965 he beat Tony Lema after being 7 down with 17
holes to play. In 1978, he won his third Masters
title, aged 42, by shooting a 64 on the last day
to snatch a victory everybody else thought
belonged to someone else. Playing with him that
day was a young Seve Ballesteros, who has
confessed his admiration for Player's
never-say-die attitude. Player has become the
international golfer par excellence. He had had
to overcome the logistical problems imposed by
regularly commuting to tournaments from his
family home in South Africa, where he has won the
national Open 13 times. He was the first overseas
golfer to be a dominant force in the United
States, where he won 21 official PGA Tour titles.
In 1974, he became the first man to break 60 in a
national championship when he had a 59 in the
Brazilian Open, and that same season he notched
up his 100th professional title world-wide. Player owes much to his unquenchable spirit. That has given him, as it did Palmer, a new competitive life on the US Senior tour, where he had notched up 16 victories by the end of the 1992 season, including the four 'senior majors' - the US Senior Open, PGA Seniors Championship, Senior Players Championship and British Senior Open. Player likes to point out that this makes him the only man in history to have completed the Grand Slam at both the regular and over-50 levels. If nobody else pays much attention to this, that's in part because the official line from the US Senior tour is that a different four events from those designated by Gary constitute the 'Senior Slam' and in part because Player has always been as long on hyperbole as he is short in stature. But, equally, nobody has ever been wise to underestimate the man's definitively dogged determination. "The more I practice, the luckier I get." - Gary Player |
 A small giant among giants.
Despite an impressive past, Player is always looking to conquer new goals. |
