The discerning ruminations of Gary Player

Interviewing someone for a media publication, print or otherwise, is not particularly difficult. But it is not an unskilled action, either. Forming cogent questions, doing proper research beforehand and listening are all-important skills one must have. Another often overlooked skill is controlling a conversation. It is overlooked because often, both participants know what they want to be talking about and it takes little effort to stay on point. Where this skill proves invaluable is when interviewing someone who does not really want to be interviewed – usually people with something to hide; a corrupt politician or scandal-prone celebrity, for example.

Where I did not think this skill would be required, was with Gary Player. And not because Player had anything to hide; no, he had quite the opposite problem. A more open, cordial and honest interviewee I had yet to meet.

No, the issue with Player was that he was quite willing to speak about anything you cared to ask, and at length as well.

At 75, one of golf’s senior statesmen has had a life so vast in its experiences that a mere few hours could not contain them. And by his own honest admission, he has a tendency to answer questions well beyond the scope of the questioner’s intent.

In the six or so hours I was able to spend with him – during one of them receiving instruction on the game of golf at the Links at Fancourt – we discussed politics, religion, sportsmanship, veganism and much more beyond that.

The following is a brief sampling of the man’s ruminations on a life well lived and unlikely to be repeated by another person ever again.

Appreciating your sponsors

If I were on the Professional Golfers Association committee today, I would get together every new player who comes on the tour, and I would have a person explain this to him very carefully.

Number one: You may never refuse an interview. Whenever media wants to talk to, you have to do it.

Number two: You have to write a letter [of appreciation] to every single sponsor.

Number three: You have to attend every single dinner and function. Otherwise, you are not going to play.

Now, whether you can enforce that or not, I do not know.

On people’s disinterest in their health

I go to a gym yesterday morning – I work out in Cape Town – and the gym is full.

The guy says to me, “Look at this, the people are worried about health.” I say, “People don’t worry about health!”

Obesity is one of our biggest problems in this country. We have a massive problem – massive with a capital M – with obesity. Look at our officials, look on our television, look at our people walking the streets – massive!

I ask the guy, “How many people in this town?” “Two million,” he says. I say, “How many gyms have you got?” He says, “Fifteen.”

I say, “How many people are members per gym?”

“Five hundred? That’s 7 500, whatever it may be (total times by a million and a half).

I say, “Well, the other million and a half are getting fat and getting out of shape!”

His dedication to physical fitness

I am 75. I do a thousand sit-ups, I do all these push-ups, I do all the squatting and exercising and things like that.

When my professional partners were sleeping at night, at 12 o’ clock at night, after I had to go to all these functions, I would go to the manager of the hotel – no one knows this, I do not know if I put it in my book – and say to the manager, “Will you give me a key for the gymnasium?”

“I’m sorry, it closed at 22h00,” he replied. And I would beg him for the key.

He would give me the key and I would be in that gym, pumping, pumping, pumping. Even during travelling.

Even now at 75. Sitting in the airport at two o’clock in the morning. Well, that is my life.

It comes back to this: the harder you work, the luckier you get. I first said that by pure luck in Dallas, Texas in about 1958.

On the threats or abuse he received while playing during apartheid

I am the only golfer who ever lived who was threatened every day while playing, that they [anti-apartheid activists] would kill me.

They threw golf balls between my legs when I was putting on a vital putt. They came out of the galleries and charged me on the green and tore out the greens to smithereens when I was on it. They threw telephone books at my back, at the top of my backswing – these bladdie telephone books on my back which were really, really painful, but I could not let them know it. They screamed on the top of my backswing.

As I would go on to the tee, they would throw ice in my face.

[At the Australian Open] I walked on to the first tee and there were these coloured South Africans, and as I walked over they all started screaming at me like I had invented apartheid.

A woman stood there with a baby in her arms, married to this white Australian, and they called me a f***ing racist – and this kind of thing while I am trying to get ready to tee off.

“You can’t have a baby like this in South Africa!” they screamed.

Can you imagine? I mean, can you imagine telling Ernie Els or Retief Goosen to play like that?

On having travelled 15 million miles

I have travelled more miles now than any human being who has ever lived. I turned pro in 1953, but I started travelling in 1952. That is 58 years.

And not like the guy today. Today, the guy wakes up, he has people, his baggage is taken for him, there is a limousine, he travels everywhere around the world in a G5 private jet.

When I went overseas, I had six children – that is why you will never find a wife like I have, never. Six children, 40 hours from here to Australia, 40 hours to America.

All five stops and children, no disposable diapers and no jets, constantly with that noise in your ears, flying at the height of the storm, 29 000 feet – not at 51 000 feet above the storm, like now.

Regarding himself as a living legend

It would be a sin. It would be a sin if I walk around thinking that I am a living legend. I am merely another human being who has been loaned a talent – not given it – and fortunately, I realised this as a young man.

It is actually beyond my comprehension that this little guy from South Africa, who really had nothing, had all this success.

Taking what has happened to me in my life, and for me to start thinking that I did that – that would really be conceit. If you are going to walk around thinking you are an icon, you are only one tick away from those [Pearly] Gates.

And if you are able to get there, it ain’t going to mean a damn thing, having won two grand slams. It is not going to help you get in there, unless He is a golfer. (laughs)

You have to be very careful of that.

I see these CEOs in business who are arrogant, and now they have to retire and they go into oblivion. All these people with all this power in their field, and now they retire and they are nobody.

And it is such a shock to the system.

So one must be prepared for yourself in life.

Do not start thinking that because you are a world champion, or you are a this or a that – it only lingers, it does not last. It lingers, but it does not last. ▲

Zaid Kriel