ShareThisGary Player bid farewell to the Masters on Monday. Because this was Gary Player, and it was a Monday afternoon and nobody was in much of a rush, it turned into quite the long goodbye.
Player played in his first Masters at the age of 21 in 1957. He became the first international player to win the Masters, in 1961, and won three green jackets, and might have set some kind of unofficial record for stories told and firm handshakes and genuine smiles.
He told a few more stories Monday, after announcing that this will be the last Masters in which he plays. He also offered hope and caution for the future of golf, worrying about the lengthening of grand old golf courses to combat modern equipment, and predicting that athletes who look more like Michael Jordan than Mike Weir could transform the game.
"I've enjoyed it so much," Player said. "When I arrived here in 1957, I doubt whether I had $5,000 to my name, and I drove through these gates, and you can imagine I was in absolute awe, and overwhelmed."
Now it's the golf course -- expanded to 7,435 yards, complete with rough, wind and elevation changes -- that overwhelms him. "I'm hitting the ball so short now, I can hear it land," Player said, laughing. "The hole is getting to be the size of a Bayer aspirin."
One unique Masters tradition is the tournament's lifetime invitation for past champions. Player is 73. Many, upon reaching an advanced age, struggle to finish rounds. Player, believed to be the first prominent golfer to lift heavy weights, displayed remarkable longevity. Last year, in his record-setting 51st Masters, Player shot a second-round 78 despite having to hit woods into most holes.
"I'm exercising profusely, but it's very difficult at 73 to build strength," he said. "The golf course is so long. It is just so long ...
"Ernie Els said something to me five days ago. He said, 'You know, Gary, one of the greatest rounds you ever shot at Augusta?' I said, 'Yeah, when I came back at 30 to win the tournament.' He said, 'No, when you shot the 77 a couple of years ago and the greens were hard, and you tied something like 22 guys and beat 25 guys.'"
Does he think his record of 52 Masters is safe?
"Oh, no, it will be broken," he said. "We are in our infancy when it comes to the mind and the body. You know, when I first started doing weight training 53 years ago, I mean, there was a famous man here, I won't mention his name, and he saw me when I was squatting 325 pounds in the old YMCA. He said, 'Can you imagine this man doing these weights? He'll never last 35 years.'
"When I won my tournament in ('61), I said, 'How are you up there? What's it like?'"
Player looked toward the heavens, and laughed.
He predicted that golfers will evolve as training techniques and nutrition evolve. "My grandchildren's children will never eat any of the foods that we eat today," he said. "You're going to find bionic men playing in time to come.
"Golf is in its infancy. They have a man in Canada, he weighs 165 pounds and he hit the ball 444 yards in the long driving competition. And we have not had big men playing golf, the Michael Jordans and Shaquille O'Neals. They are coming, because they have seen Tiger."
Player agreed with critics who say the Masters has dampened the drama of the back nine on Sundays by increasing the course's length and difficulty.
"There's definitely a slight edge off the golf course, as far as great excitement is concerned," he said. "If you think back, the cheers that you could hear through these trees and these valleys, time and time again with lots of eagles, birdies."
Player has heard the roars for more than half a century.
"My goodness, when I think of the career I've had," he said. "You can't have it all, and yet I did have it all. I've had it all."
(Contact Jim Souhan at jsouhan@startribune.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
columnMust credit Minneapolis Star Tribune
