On Gary Player's drug allegations

I REMEMBER well the first time I saw Gary Player performing live on a golf course. It was back in the late 1960s, when my father took me to see the South African play in a Big Three TV extravaganza against Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer at Carnoustie and I can still recall how surprised I was to see how small the South African appeared when standing alongside his two leading rivals.

Player was dwarfed by the two American superstars but that did not stop him holding his own on that occasion and it might well have been a contributory factor in the enormous success he went on to achieve in a career that saw him win eight Major titles and well in excess of 150 titles around the world.

Player has always been a fascinating character and his life story is that of a little man who has had to battle hard against huge odds to achieve the success he craved. His mother died of cancer when he was just eight. His father was a miner who spent much of his time working underground in order to put food on the table and, if that was not enough to blunt his ambitions, as a youngster he also appeared to possess little of the natural talent needed to succeed in the game of his choice.

When a young Player first came to Britain in the mid-1950s his swing was so unorthodox, so inconsistent, that one kindly senior English professional advised him to give up all thoughts of becoming a tour professional and seek a decent club job instead. Still, though, he would not be deflected from his objective. Having redoubled his efforts, he was rewarded with his first two victories, at the East Rand Open and the Egyptian Matchplay, in 1955, and on he went from there.

The South African's response to criticism about his swing was to work hard ­harder than anyone else.

"The harder I work, the luckier I get" became his mantra and, when he realised his diminutive frame might count against him, he embarked on a rigorous fitness routine designed to enhance his durability and core strength. "Arnold, Jack, Lee, Watson and the rest were larger physically," he said. "But I made myself so fit in my mind I was larger than they were.
Size is a state of mind."

Back in the 1960s, Player's fitness routine and strict diet marked him out as something of an eccentric. Nowadays, however, Tiger Woods works just as hard off the course as he does on it and so, too, do many of his peers. Player set new standards when it came to health and fitness and he was also arguably the first golfer to understand the value of positive thinking. At
tournaments, the South African routinely did everything he could to blank out negative vibes on the basis that only positive thinkers could play well enough to win.

Sometimes, of course, this led to him making preposterous statements, like the time at Dalmahoy in Scotland when he told journalists: "You know, this course has the finest flag sticks I have ever seen." More frequently, however, his refusal to countenance failure worked in his favour, not least at the 1965 World Matchplay Championship at Wentworth Club when, playing against the late Open champion Tony Lema, he recovered from being seven down after 19 holes to win on the 37th.

Over the years, Player has been a magnificent role model for aspiring young professionals. Nevertheless, it should also be said his career has also been clouded in occasional controversy, allegations of gamesmanship and sometimes more. Twenty years after he won the 1974 Open at Royal Lytham, Player was astounded when a British golf magazine recounted rumours that he might have played a wrong ball after a search in long grass on the 71st hole. In truth, no hard evidence has ever been found to support this allegation and Player, for his part, denies it vehemently, claiming in any case, even if he
had not found the ball within the allotted five minutes, he was so far ahead of his nearest rival that he could have gone back and played another ball and still won.

Of course, nowadays, more than 30 years hence, the substance of that episode matters less than the insight it offers into how Player is perceived by others. Clearly he is seen as a man obsessed with winning, if not quite at all costs, then certainly by any means within the rules of the game, and as such the comments he made at the recent Open about drug usage in golf are to be applauded.

Frankly, I have no means of knowing whether Player is correct when he suggests up to a dozen current tour professionals are using drugs to enhance their performance, but I do defend to the hilt his right to denounce this perceived practice.

Hopefully, what Player has done is to remind the world's tours that the time has come to stop pontificating and to implement strict anti-doping policies. That way, this cancer, if it exists, will be removed, thereby affording all hard-working, up-and-coming youngsters the same chance Player himself had when he began his extraordinary journey to the top.