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Gary Player tells S’Busiso Mseleku at Sun City that SA has a chance to produce its own top-tier golfers if they’re able to develop the elusive element within themselves that makes good competitors great.
‘To be a great champion in any sport, you must have ‘it’.
“I don’t know what ‘it’ is, I can’t even describe or explain it, but it’s what separates great players from the rest.”
This was golf legend Gary Player answering why South Africa has failed to consistently produce golf major winners in the past few years.
He was talking during this weekend’s Gary Player Invitational, an annual fundraising event at Sun City.
Player had a field of sporting legends from different codes teeing off for a good cause (see box).
The event, which comprises a two-day pro-am, gala dinner auction, celebrity tournament and several parties, is the last leg of year-long charity tournaments that are held in Abu Dhabi, London, New York City and Shanghai.
Player mentioned some of the people who graced his event – including legendary golfer Annika Sörenstam, cricket star Brian Lara, soccer player Kenny Dalglish and local football hero Mark Williams, who scored the two goals that won South Africa the 1996 Afcon trophy – as some of those who had that “it” element.
“Annika is probably the best woman golf player ever,” he said.
“I recently played with her in Texas and was amazed at how cleanly she still hits the ball, even after years of retirement.
Player feels that South Africa can produce its own Tiger Woods.
“I go to the newly revamped Soweto Country Club and I see a lot of youngsters practising there. Most of them have an amazing swing, but I ask myself if they have ‘it’,” he said.
“Talent alone is not good enough to make you a great player. You must have the hunger, desire, passion and, more especially, the staying power.
“People look at golf as a glamorous sport with all the travelling and the big money that you can win, but they forget about the amount of time you spend alone on the road as a professional golfer. If you can survive that, you can make it.
“South Africa has such a great chance to produce its own Tiger Woods, but I don’t think we have players who have it in them yet,” he said.
He said that, with the amount of money that the sponsors were pouring into the game, some players were just happy to be part of the field, even if they didn’t challenge for honours.
Player’s affinity for charity was born out of an incident that happened when he was only eight years old. His father took him to visit his mother, Muriel, who was suffering from cancer in hospital on Christmas Day in 1943. She died a few days after that visit.
As he approached the final hole in the 1962 US Open, Player told US Golf Association executive director Joe Dey after he finished sixth: “Had I won, Joe, I planned on giving the prize money to charity, but let’s keep that a secret. One day I shall win and turn back the money to a good cause. That is a promise.”
The things that we create through our words do have a tendency to become reality. Player’s prophecy became a reality with the formation of the Gary Player Foundation in 1983. This gave birth to the Gary Player Invitational the following year and the rest, as the old adage goes, is history.
To date, the foundation has raised $63 million, just $37 million short of the $100 million target that it set for itself for 2025.
The foundation supports the greater Durban area and the Winelands, where it helped establish recycling projects in Colesberg; Wings and Wishes, which has transported 1 570 sick children from some of the most remote areas in the country to hospitals; and the Blair Atholl School in Johannesburg with educational programmes, medical care, a feeding scheme, recreational facilities and transport services.
“Nothing pleases me more than seeing women from rural areas, whose average age is 65, collecting piles of rubbish for recycling and growing trees, and in the process earning money that helps them put food on the table for their kids and also have enough money to send them to school.”
