Gary Player - The Legend

This Year Marks the 40th Anniversary of Gary Player’s Career Grand Slam

May 30, 2005 | Filed Under: General News   

It was 40 years ago that Gary Player became the third man (after Hogan and Sarazen) to capture the career Grand Slam at the 1965 US Open at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis. Only Nicklaus and Woods have since matched this incredible feat.

“Quite simply, I consider winning the Grand Slam as the finest achievement in my golfing career,” says the Black Knight.

During the 1965 US Open, Player remembers wearing the same black shirt every day, washing it himself, and hanging it over the shower rail to dry. “A silly superstition perhaps, but it gave me a certain level of karma,” he recalls.

Player won the tournament in a dramatic 18-hole playoff against Kel Nagle on Monday, becoming the first non-American to win the US Open since Ted Ray in 1920. He earned admiration of golf fans around the world when he donated his winning check to Cancer Research and the Junior Golf Association. In his victory speech, Player said, “I am doing this because I made a promise to Joe Dey (then the executive director of the USGA) and to repay America for its many kindnesses to me over the past few years.”

It just so happened that Player managed to win the Grand Slam in the first four major championships of his career - the British Open in 1959, the Masters in 1961, the PGA Championship in 1962 and the US Open in 1965. In the next 40 years of his career, he would go on to secure five more majors on the regular PGA Tour and nine on the Champions Tour, for a grand total of 18 titles.

INTERESTING FACT:
He played with Shakespeare prototype fiberglass/graphite shafts on all his clubs and he became the first man ever to win on tour using these types of shafts.

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