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A Man on a Mission

Apr 2, 2008 | Filed Under: General News   Share

By Lorne Rubenstein
Courtesy of The Globe & Mail
April 1, 2008

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Florida — Next week’s Masters will be Gary Player’s 51st, and nobody has competed in more. One of the reasons he’s managed so many is apparent in his boardroom here, where he sat down for lunch recently.

That’s the food on the table. Player is healthy and fit, and he’s a man on a mission more important than playing 51 Masters and, no doubt, another one or two.

“My wife says don’t talk too much about it because you’re a bloody bore,” Player says as he sits at the head of the table. “But if you can save people’s lives, you can’t be a bore.”

Player digs in. There’s lentil soup, avocado slices, fruit, salad with grilled chicken, almonds, crunchy nut bread and water. The Globe Mail’s food critic, Joanne Kates, should be here, never mind its golf columnist. So should CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Surely he’d look at Player, 72, a man who can still shoot his age in tournaments, and think the winner of nine major championships, including three Masters, is on to something.

Still, many people figure Player will play the Masters not to make a point about health, but to break Arnold Palmer’s mark of playing 50 times. Player won’t have any of this.

“My main theme in playing Augusta is to show the young people of the world about health, diet and fitness,” Player said. “If people ate like this, it would save the country hundreds of millions of dollars a year. How do we get this across? Why aren’t they teaching these things in the schools?”

Player’s son Wayne is diabetic. One of his four daughters was 80 pounds overweight before she changed her diet. It’s no surprise he’s concerned about the modern diet and distressed that so few people really look after themselves. Player’s a workout fiend.

His fitness has been a major factor in his being able to travel as much as he has for as long as he has. As a young professional, he did 70 fingertip push-ups a day to gain strength. Player, a South African and a global golfer, lives on airplanes. He won the Grand Slam, all four majors during a career, that is, by the time he was 29. He was the third golfer to do so, after Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan.

“I wanted to beat Jack [Nicklaus] to win the Grand Slam,” Player said. “We had a good, healthy rivalry. But he won it when he was 26 and Tiger [Woods] wins it at 24. If you ask me the most impressive thing I’ve seen in my life; it’s Tiger winning the Grand Slam at 24.”

Player won the 1961, 1974 and 1978 Masters. He’s still less than pleased about the way the golf world, but for Sports Illustrated, viewed his first win. Arnold Palmer double-bogeyed the final hole, with Player in the clubhouse. Most everybody said he handed Player the win.

“The only people pulling for me were my wife and my dog,” Player said. “I’m a young guy from another country. I decide to chip back to the fairway on 13 and I chip it into the creek and make double [bogey]. I get 6 at 15 after being on the front edge for three. Sports Illustrated [writer Alfred Wright] said Arnold Palmer made his double on 18, but Gary Player made double bogey on 13 and bogey on 15, so they said I won it.”

He won again 13 years later and then in 1978, when he shot 30 on the back nine. Five years later, he missed the cut for the first time since 1958. A scrapbook of his Masters appearances includes notes he’s made.

“First time any self-doubt ever crept in,” Player wrote of the 1983 Masters. He last made the cut in 1998, when he was 62.

Lunch is coming to an end. Player enjoys a chocolate chip cookie, saying he likes a sweet from time to time. He’s had a sweet career, on and off the course. He can still play, too. Player missed the cut in last year’s Masters, but shot 77 in the second round under difficult conditions and tied or beat more than half the field.

Meanwhile, the Player Foundation has built schools in South Africa and elsewhere. He continues to travel the world. He wants to do, do, do. The man’s restless. He’s about to play his 51st Masters. Don’t bet against his playing his 52nd next year.

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