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Oosthuizen, Player and The Open at St. Andrews

Aug 4, 2010 | Filed Under: General News   Share

After trading a number of voice mail messages, missing each other in the days leading up to the final round of the 2010 British Open and Gary Player leaving St. Andrews to travel to Archerfield Links to host his annual Gary Player Invitational event Player and Louis Oosthuizen were finally able to speak Sunday morning before Louis teed off in what proved to be the greatest round of his life. 

“We had a chat in my home language Afrikaans. He said to stay calm, have a lot of fun and that the crowd was going to be on Paul’s side,” said Oosthuizen.  “Then [Player] told me the story when he played against Arnold Palmer when he won his first Masters. He said they wanted to throw stuff at me, but he was so focused on beating him in Augusta.”

“It meant a lot him phoning me up. He’s just a great guy.”

“He’s very, very good, has a magnificent golf swing and has more experience than people give him credit for,” said Player.  “He has won several other golf tournaments and is very strong physically. He doesn’t look like it when you see him walking along the fairways with waterproofs on.”

“He wants to buy a farm, it’s a great incentive and I understand because that’s how I wanted to win to buy my farm and that’s my great joy in life.”  Added Player.

Another interesting fact about the connection between Player and Oosthuizen is that Gary Player set up the caddie school in Sun City where Oosthuizen’s bag man, Zack Rasego, learned his trade.  “Over 30 years ago, when I went to Sun City and we started to build and design a golf course, I said to the owner: ‘one of the things we must do is have a caddie development programme’,” recalled Player.  Zack Rasego was the top caddie in the program and worked for Player in the 1980’s.  “I brought him over here to caddie for me at The Open championship in the Eighties, during the apartheid era. It is so terrific when you train a young man from humble beginnings, and after caddying for me for a long time he then goes on to win the Open. For me that is a very special story.” 

“When I phoned him yesterday morning before he played, he kept using the phrase: ‘Dankie, Oom’,” said Player. “It’s very difficult to translate from Afrikaans. It means something like ‘thank you uncle’. The way I interpreted it was: ‘Thank you father’. It was so sweet.”  As one of Player’s colleagues who knows him very well put it “He was like a proud papa watching Louis.”

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