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AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Gary Player, already pushing 70, decided to prove that he could push right back.
A few years ago, when the folks at Callaway flew him to the company's West Coast headquarters for a meeting, Player showed up, resplendent as always, and dressed to the nines in a suit and tie, every hair perfectly in place, even the gray ones.
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| South African legend Gary Player won the Masters in '61, '74 and '78. (Getty Images) |
Absolutely untrue, Player laughed, when the 5-year-old anecdote was offered for confirmation a few days ago. Actually, it was more like 10 pushups per hand -- not that he has slipped much since entering his septuagenarian years.
"That's a Texas story, I guess," Player laughed, noting that the numbers have been exaggerated. "But I did 1,200 sit-ups the day before yesterday, with an 80-pound weight right here."
Player pointed toward his chest, wherein beats the most energetic and hungry heart the game has ever known.
As though his impressive body of work isn't evidence enough to prove the point, Player this week will set a record for most career appearances at the Masters by playing for the 51st time, a mark that quite likely will stand forever.
"It's mind-boggling," said 1988 Masters champ Sandy Lyle, 50. "I wonder if we'll see Tiger Woods doing the same sort of thing."
To put it in perspective, Woods could top the mark, assuming he doesn't miss any Masters ... in 2047, by which time he would be 69 and most of us will be pushing up azaleas, in keeping with the favored local flora.
"Think about it," Player said, somewhat amazed himself. "Most people my age are dead."
He offers the words with traces of pride and outright defiance. Player has always been the little man who had to outwork everybody. His entire career, spanning continents and transcending generations, has been built with sweat equity.
"Gary is comfortably the greatest sportsman we've ever had in our country," said fellow South African Trevor Immelman. "He has been such an incredible role model for us, for all South Africans."
He's not a bad guy for North Americans to emulate, either. Player is a complicated man who was raised in difficult circumstances in the racially charged nation of his youth, but his public persona has never wavered. He is, without any fraction of doubt, the most singularly upbeat man the sport has ever known. To illustrate the point, as Immelman sat in a room at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the air conditioning was cranked so high icicles were threatening to form in the rafters.
"I have never met anybody who has such consistent enthusiasm for what he's doing," Immelman said, grinning. "The rest of us are sitting in here freezing right now, but he'd be like, 'Man, isn't it great that the air conditioner works! This is the best air conditioner I've ever seen!'"
Player said his unbridled optimism has been a blessing, imbued by real-world circumstances the likes of which most fat-and-happy Americans will never experience. His mother died when he was 8, his father worked long hours in the mines, his brothers were soldiers, and in a country in which apartheid nearly tore the nation apart, Gary was mostly raised by a black man named John. Yeah, Player has an eternal fire burning in his belly.
"Anybody in this room that's not optimistic, I feel sorry to you," he said two weeks ago at a Champions Tour stop in Florida. "If not, let me take you to some places in the world and show you what's going on. You'll come back here and kiss the damn ground and you'll be so positive you won't believe yourself.
"I always hear these stories, people that condemn this country, I want to give them an airplane ticket and take them to a few places, and they'll never condemn this place again."
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"If Gary wanted to run for president," countryman Ernie Els said, "he probably could have won."
Even when Player isn't crazy about something, he'll find a way to put a happy face on the subject at hand. One of Player's most famous pet phrases was referenced in a speech two years ago in Atlanta by smirking PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, who was honoring Player with a career-achievement award. The most negative thing Player has ever publicly uttered about a person, place or thing? "It's one of the best of its kind."
Brilliant, no? That phrase could mean almost anything. Yet there is no mincing of words with regard to why Player continues to tee it up at Augusta, where he last won the title 30 years ago by making up a seven-shot deficit in the final round. First, as one of five players to have won the career Grand Slam, he has damned sure earned the right. Secondly, he's on a crusade.
A man with 20 grandchildren, who might weigh 145 pounds if he fell into a water hazard, wants to snap Americans out of their lethargic, sugar-induced coma. He has watched as our waistlines have broadened over the past couple of decades and says it's killing him -- not to mention what it's doing to us. Moreover, Wayne Player, one of Gary's sons, has diabetes.
"My dream now is to influence young people to look after their bodies, because obesity is one of the great epidemics of the world we live in, and unless we find something that is a better cure than what we do today, there will be 100 million Americans with diabetes in 50 years' time," he said.
By then, Player will have teed it up in 101 straight Masters. Really, this guy could potentially live forever.
Two weeks ago, in a span of eight days, Player went on an airplane odyssey to visit some of the 50 golf courses his design firm has under construction worldwide. From his U.S. base in West Palm Beach, Fla., he flew to Hawaii, back to Florida, to Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Bangkok, across China to Beijing, then to London. From there, he flew to Morocco and Germany before heading back to Florida.
"I didn't know where the hell I was," he laughed. "But I do it because I have the energy."
In addition to his murderous fitness regimen, the man has no discernible vices, which was evident the day before the Champions Tour event in late March.
"Like, last night, I don't eat," he said. "All I had was just a handful of broccoli. One day a week, I try and not eat. I don't eat ice cream, I don't eat bacon, I don't drink milk, I don't eat white bread.
"But I'm not a martyr. I have a glass of wine. If I want a beer or whiskey, I have it. When I want chocolate, I have it. But those others are a few things I eliminate entirely."
Player's health did fail him once, back in 1973, when he had bladder surgery and missed the Masters for the lone time in the 51-year stretch. Player, of course, impatiently paced around the hospital with a colostomy bag in hand, nearly scaring one patient out of her wits.
"She thought I looked like Dracula," Player cracked.
Come to think of it, Player's nickname is the Black Knight, and from what we can tell, Gary is pretty close to immortal himself. Missing the Masters -- he won it again in 1974 and '78 -- was a tough pill at the time, but longevity has taken away the sting. Palmer played 50 in succession at Augusta National before ending the run in 2004, claiming his own piece of history.
Last spring at Augusta, Palmer gave his South African pal the needle about stubbornly gunning for the record. Or, rather, a different record entirely. Player hasn't made a Masters cut since 1998.
"Well, if he isn't embarrassed, I won't be embarrassed for him," Palmer cracked. "He just wants to do one better and that's fine. I'm for him.
"But he can't touch my record. He hasn't even come close to it. And you don't know why, though, do you? He missed a year. So that's the end of that."
Fair enough.
"I look back now and it doesn't mean a thing, because here I am now, going to play 51," Player said of his streak being snapped 35 years ago. "You've got to be so healthy to do that. What is the word, to be able to play 51? Gratitude, gratitude."
If not pride, if not passion. Despite his accomplishments and ambassadorship for the game, he has never been as warmly embraced at Nicklaus or Palmer, the other members of the so-called Big Three of the 1960s, and he has had to work harder to generate acclaim. Nicklaus last year described his old pal thusly: "I have always said, pound for pound, he's the best golfer who ever lived."
But the feisty Player, all of 5-feet-7, never acknowledged a disadvantage next to the burly likes of his fellow kings.
"When I stood on the tee with Arnold or Jack, it was an interesting thing, and I was talking to my wife about this the other day," Player recalled. "Even though I was smaller and physically, I wasn't as strong, I was much fitter. I always remember playing and thinking, 'Man, I'm going to whip their asses today.'"
There has never been a shortage of desire, which surely has fueled his admirable longevity. Player fervently believes that he could whip the vast majority of men aged 40 in a fitness contest. A room full of pudgy sportswriters at the Ginn Championship, all approximately that age, did not argue the point.
By the way, Player isn't necessarily quitting his Masters run after this week, either. He's clearly not ready to join the ceremonial-starter ranks, whacking a symbolic tee shot off the No. 1 tee on Thursday morning like Sam Snead, Byron Nelson and Palmer have done in their advancing years.
"Oh, heavens no," he said. "We'll see what happens this year and how I feel heading into next year."
Player then walked off to conduct a lengthy local radio interview, during which he was waving his hands around in animated fashion. The man loves to talk.
Said XM Radio's Peter Kessler, who has essentially interviewed every great golfer of the past half-century, including Player: "He has proven to himself, time and again through his own life, that through hard work, all things are possible."
That said, it's a fitting geographic fact that music legend James Brown was an Augusta native, since the Godfather of Soul was deemed the hardest working man in show business. When it comes to the Energizer Bunny of golf, Gary Player shares the marquee with nobody.
