Profile : Gary Player Takes a Swing at South African Politics : Once reticent on issues, the golf star says he supports ending apartheid but worries about communism.

He’s achieved almost everything he ever dreamed of. Golf’s most treasured trophies fill his homes. Millions around the world play the courses he has designed. He has six happy children and two grandchildren. And he is wealthy by any measure.

But strolling across his farm here the other day, gazing at his breeding stock of thoroughbred race horses and taking in the narcotic beauty of his homeland, Gary Player was fretting that one final dream may elude him.

“My dream is to stay here forever. Africa is in my blood,” said Player, 57, squinting in the stark sunlight of a warm winter morning in the Southern Hemisphere.

“But I would not stay here with a Communist government,” he added. “What we in South Africa have to have is capitalism with some socialist ideas--some charity--thrown in.”

During his illustrious golf career, Player has been a lightning rod for anti-apartheid sentiment, especially in the United States. Yet for most of his four decades on the course, he tried to be the neutral athlete, neither criticizing nor defending the white rulers of South Africa.

“Politics is not for me,” he said recently over breakfast at his farm here, 20 miles north of Johannesburg. “I’ve found that if I say anything in this country, people will say, ‘Well, what does he know? He’s a golfer.’ ”

But then, in a long interview with The Times, Player talked of little besides politics. And later, he telephoned this correspondent once and followed up with three letters, expanding on his political views and emerging as a man with strong opinions on the direction his country is going.

Player belongs to no political party and has little contact with black or white politicians. But, like many whites in South Africa, he strongly supports President Frederik W. de Klerk’s efforts to abolish apartheid, hold democratic elections and negotiate a new constitution with the black majority.

These days, though, Player is deeply concerned about that transition to democracy, the resulting violence that has claimed nearly 10,000 black lives since 1990 and the name-calling by top black and white leaders.

Player admires Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi for fighting sanctions and supporting a free-enterprise system. But he is disappointed that neither Buthelezi nor Nelson Mandela, of the African National Congress, seem able to stop the fighting between their supporters.

And most of all, he deeply fears the Communist influences in the ANC.

Although Mandela is not a Communist, several dozen key members of his organization are party members. And even though the local Communist Party has said it now realizes the need for a vibrant private sector in South Africa, Player and many other white business leaders are skeptical.

“When you’ve been deprived of so many things in life, I can understand a person thinking, well, communism might be the answer,” Player said.

“But here I’ve built something without anybody giving me anything,” he added. “And then some guy who believes in communism says, ‘Hey, look, you’ve got to share that with everybody.’ ”

Player believes that South Africa, with visionary leadership, could be a model of racial harmony and economic prosperity. But the country needs to embrace free-market principles if it hopes to create an environment where all races can prosper, he said.

“I’ve always been the eternal optimist,” Player said. “But I feel a little pessimistic at the moment. I don’t blame (black) people for feeling frustrated with an apartheid system. But we need to forget the past. You can’t live with hate in your heart.”

Player’s faith in the future is shaken by two worrying trends. One is the high rate of black population growth, which will delay the economic recovery needed to right the wrongs of apartheid. The other is the huge number of young blacks today who are uneducated, because of political strife and a weak educational system.

Three years ago, Player decided to do something about the state of education by building a school on his farm.

The school’s 400 pupils, sons and daughters of black farm workers, have computers, modern classrooms and a library full of books. They are served hot lunches and visited regularly by a doctor and a dentist. And their parents attend “life skills” courses at night, taught by the school’s instructors.

Although the school can’t begin to correct South Africa’s massive educational problems, Player believes that it can be a model. And the Sowetan, South Africa’s largest newspaper for black readers, said in an editorial that Player had “set a sterling example” for the country.

“We are trying to show that with a little bit of input and support, you can uplift people,” said Kathy Milwidsky, the school principal. “And we are proving that if children and teachers are provided with the right opportunities, they will take them and fly with them.”

The school is designed for more than simple education. “We are teaching them a spirit, not just giving them an education,” Player said. “We’re building good citizens here.” Player now plans to build two other schools, “to play my small role, to work for the solid right things in this country.”

In the past, Player has sponsored young black golfers to go overseas and has shocked white racists in South Africa by using black caddies in the British Open. But those efforts won him no praise from the African National Congress, which criticized him for ignoring its sporting sanctions and for refusing to use his high profile to attack the government.

Player has no regrets, though. “You’ll never satisfy people,” he said. “You’ll always be criticized because you never did enough. But that’s how it is.”

Like most whites in South Africa, Player grew up believing that apartheid--separate development of the races--was the right system for South Africa.

“We were brainwashed,” Player said. But later, as he began traveling the world, “I suddenly realized that this was such a big bunch of propaganda,” he said.

“I can’t tell you when it happened,” Player added. “But suddenly I realized it wasn’t right and that the government wasn’t telling us the truth. They were pulling the wool over our eyes. And it really, really hurt this country.”

Nevertheless, Player still shunned politics, and his name--though known worldwide--rarely strayed from the sports pages. Six years ago, though, his anger at the system boiled over when then-President Pieter W. Botha backtracked on promises of reform.

Player publicly endorsed a liberal white man running for Parliament against the ruling party’s candidate. And he told the newspapers then that he had “almost puked” when he heard South Africa’s foreign minister blaming the United States for violence here.

“Our system is at fault,” Player said then. “The only way we can have a future in this country is if we scrap apartheid.”

Player was born in Johannesburg, to a family of modest means. Golf taught him the value of competition. His father, a crew captain in the gold mines near Johannesburg, taught him the value of fiscal conservatism. Harry Player borrowed money only twice in his life--to buy Gary’s first set of golf clubs and to send his son to his first British Open.

Today, Gary Player is one of the wealthiest men in South Africa. His earnings on the PGA Senior Tour are minuscule compared to his other businesses. The Gary Player Group, involved in more than a dozen ventures from the Americas to the Far East, has an estimated annual turnover of $150 million to $200 million, according to South Africa’s Executive magazine.

Player has several houses, including one in Florida, but home is this bucolic farm, Blair Atholl, at the end of a winding, tree-lined road. The farm’s tall gate is manned by a friendly black guard, and a sign inside warns visitors: “Dead Slow. Animals and Children.”

In his office, next to the large house, Player keeps his first PGA Tour paycheck framed on the wall. It is for $16.66, for finishing in a tie for 25th place in the 1958 Azalea Open in South Carolina. What followed were 151 victories, including nine of golf’s major championships--a remarkable achievement, considering the brutal commute between his home in South Africa and U.S. golf courses.

“America is such a phenomenal country, and I adore it,” said Player, who stands 5-foot-7 and weighs a trim 147 pounds. “But when I hear the things Americans say to me about South Africa, I just shudder. The ignorance! I guess you can’t blame them, in a way, because they see all this violence on television.

“But I honestly feel there’s more love between black and white in South Africa than there is in America,” he added. “I believe that in my heart. We’ve just had a political system that stinks.”

Over the years, Player’s fondness for his homeland was construed by some Americans as support for apartheid. And as a white South African winning U.S. tournaments in the midst of America’s own racial turmoil, Player became a handy target for those angered by the racist policies of a government in faraway Pretoria.

Player was torn between love and loyalty for his country and anger at the apartheid regime that ran it.

The low point was the 1970 PGA tournament in Dayton, Ohio, when spectators charged him on the greens, threw telephone books that struck him in the back and shouted “miss” during his putts. He ended up losing the title by one stroke.

“I remember thinking, ‘Well, I’m going to die today,’ ” Player said, recalling the final round in that tournament. “But I also thought, ‘What the hell are they picking on me for? I’m not the (South African) government. I don’t make the rules.’ ”

In the end, that’s why Player refused to withdraw. “If I ran, I’d have been admitting that I felt guilty for apartheid,” he said. “And I figured, well, this is a punishment I have to accept. And I honestly believe that adversity made me a better man.”

* Name: Gary Jim Player

* Age: 57

* Profession: Golf professional, designer of golf courses and equipment.

* Personal: Born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He and wife, Vivienne, have six children and two grandchildren.

* Quote: “If I had been black in South Africa under apartheid, with no proper education system and the injustices, I would have fought.”