What I’ve learned: Gary Player opens up on his nine-decade journey

With his 90th birthday approaching in November, nine-time major champion Gary Player says he has “traveled more miles than any human being” and calls himself “the most well-read athlete in history.” (Another apt assessment might be “most opinionated.”) Here are some lessons the Black Knight has picked up on his nine-decade journey.

What makes a champion? You can’t define it. But I believe it has a certain amount to do with suffering.

I am grateful for how I suffered as a kid. I suffered like a junkyard dog.

I adored my mother. She died when I was nine years old. My father had to leave school at 15. He was one of six. He needed a job. The only job you could get in South Africa at his age was down a gold mine, 8,000 feet below the ground. He did that for 30 years.

As a boy, I would wake up at 5 a.m. and walk an hour and a half to school and an hour and a half back. I’d come home to an empty house. I was nine, and I had to cook my own food. For two years, I would lie in bed, crying every night. And you know what? It’s the greatest gift I ever had in my life.

I am not a boaster. But I sit here today having won the most tournaments of any man on the planet. It’s a fact. I won more national titles — U.S. Opens, British Opens, Australian Opens and on — than Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods combined. I’ve lasted longer than Sam Snead, the greatest athlete to ever play the game.

I still shoot par at my age. I’m nearly 90.

All this success comes about because of what happened to me as a young person. When you play professional golf, you are suffering. People don’t realize that this game eats you up alive.

But this game — you never master it. Whether you are Tiger, Jack, Ben Hogan, today you shoot 88, the next day you shoot 74. The conditions are the same. You haven’t changed your swing.

So why do you choose golf? Because it’s all you ever dreamed of doing.

People use the word superstar too loosely these days. For me, Michael Jordan is a superstar. LeBron James, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Usain Bolt — they are superstars. Today, a guy wins two or three majors, they say he’s a superstar. No, he’s not. He’s a hell of a player, but he’s not a superstar. The only reason I have this knowledge is because I’ve lived so long, read so much and traveled so widely. I played with Gene Sarazen and Tommy Armour. I met Walter Hagen. There are pros today who weren’t even born when I played with those guys.

Everything shall pass. But I’m going to try to write down everything to the best of my knowledge.

I’m going to write a book. One of the chapters is going to be titled “If!” With an exclamation point. It’s such an interesting thing. If Tiger Woods had made the right choices in his career — and I’m not criticizing — he would have won 22, 23 majors without a question. Tiger wins the U.S. Open by 15 shots and decides to go get lessons. He wanted to get better. I admired him for that, but it was to his detriment because he didn’t win a major for another 11 years. He tried to become a Navy SEAL. He jumped out of airplanes. A friend of mine who was a Navy SEAL scout said, “Tiger Woods will never see out his career. His legs and his back will go.” And I said, “You’re talking nonsense. He’s a supreme athlete.” But my friend was right.

I seldom exercise in the morning. You’ve got to channel your energy in the right way. I like to exercise at night. If I’m not playing the next day, I will work out very hard. Exercise helps me sleep. One of the great secrets to longevity is sleeping well, because it builds up the immune system. And I am a champion sleeper. You could put me in a room right now and I could sleep for 14 hours.

Tiger is the greatest golfer that ever lived. Except he isn’t. Because it’s not on paper. Jack has the greatest record on paper. Not only did Jack win 18 majors, he finished second in majors 19 times. That’s hard to believe.

Let’s reverse the thought procedure with Jack and Tiger. If Jack Nicklaus had been chasing Tiger’s record, he would have changed his philosophy. Jack never prepared for majors like Tiger did. But if Jack had been chasing Tiger, he would have shifted his focus more to the majors and he would have won more of them.

My mind works quickly. Sometimes so quickly I forget which topic I’m on.

Manners maketh the man. My mother taught me to stand up when a lady enters the room. Don’t reach across the table.

Learn to speak well. When I first came to America, if you said to a young person “How are you, son?” they would look you in the eye and say, “Fine, thank you, sir. How are you?” That’s gone now. Now, they just say, “Good.”

My dad, a man with no education, wound up speaking three native African languages, as well as Dutch, Portuguese and English. What would have happened if he’d had education and opportunity?

At 17, I told my father, “I’m going to be a professional golfer.” He said, “You’re crazy. I want you to be a doctor or a lawyer.” And I said, “No, Dad. I want to become a world champion.” And he said, “Well, son, if you believe that sincerely, then you’ve got to read. You’ve got to learn to speak well because you’re going to be in front of people, and if you want to earn a living you’ll have to represent a company. And the other thing, you’ll have to get a brand.” I had no idea what he was talking about. A brand? But then I come to America and I watch this show, Have Gun — Will Travel, with a character named Paladin who dressed in black, silver holsters, cowboy hat. And he has a card, and if he meets someone and they have a problem, he says, “Here’s my card. If it’s serious enough, I’ll help you.” I loved that. Being from South Africa and seeing this man, I thought, I’ve got to wear black. And I became the Black Knight. And here I am today, still in black.

I believe in legacies. Why? Only 15 players in history have won six majors or more. Bobby Jones won the Grand Slam in four months and he played with a walking stick as a driver and a ball that flew 80 yards less than it does today. The greens then were more like our fairways today. And they never changed the pins. And you raked the bunkers with your feet. And you traveled by Greyhound bus.

I would like a psychiatrist or someone to explain why golf does what it does to a person. I would like to understand why, when I listen to music, or when I think of my parents or my lovely family, or how lucky I am to come from a great country, I cry and I kiss the ground. But then I get on the golf course and I am a mean, miserable son of a b—-.

I’ve only met one man who knew the swing from A to Z: Ben Hogan. And I’ve been a professional golfer now for nearly 73 years. A lot of people know the swing from A to W or A to Y, but Hogan hit more balls than any man that ever lived. I’m going to surpass him. Vijay Singh might too. But this man, Ben Hogan, had an ordinary swing, and he built the greatest swing that ever existed. I was fortunate enough that Hogan told me two things about my swing, which enabled me to win the most tournaments in the world. But that information is top
secret. I’ll tell you all about it in my book.

When I listen to some of today’s teaching, I shudder. We’ve got some pros on Tour today — I’m not naming names, because I don’t want to embarrass anybody. But there is one player in particular — if I could spend just an hour with him I could make him into the best player in the world. He has so much ability but such a pitiful swing. And it’s getting worse and worse. I ask young pros, “What is the most important thing in a swing?” The rubbish they tell me!

Something else that perturbs me now is the managers. They’ve become so greedy. I went to Hong Kong and this one guy who was playing, an ordinary player, his manager wanted $750,000 for him to play. We just had an event in Sun City in South Africa. That same man who played in Hong Kong didn’t make the cut. In my era, we were never greedy. We asked for appearance money, but we were never greedy.

Arnold, Jack, myself — together we won over 300 tournaments. We won over 50 majors together. We went around the world. We went to Japan to promote the game. We went into China, South Africa, Australia. We got on planes, and they weren’t jets in those days.

I love playing with amateurs. That’s the difference between now and the times we played. When we went on the senior tour, they said, “Guys, we’ve got to build the game. Would you play in a pro-am every week?” I said, “No, I’ll play in three pro-ams every week.” Players today are not as fierce. Hogan was a fierce competitor. Sam Snead was fierce. Palmer or Nicklaus or Tom Watson or Lee Trevino or Raymond Floyd and Hale Irwin — they were as fierce as any competitors I ever saw. If you made a mistake coming down the finish line, you would never win.

You can’t compare eras. But if you took the 10 best players from our time and the 10 best right now and you put them on the same course with the same metal heads, same balls, tamping down spike marks and with machines to rake the bunkers, we would whip their a–es.

Why do I say that? Because when we were in a position to win, we won.