Player, at 60, Is More Than Just a Player

Gary Player sat on a wooden bench next to the putting green Thursday afternoon. He was actually sitting still, which is unusual because Player spends more time in the air than clouds.

Here is his travel schedule beginning Sunday night, as soon as the FHP Health Care Classic in Ojai ends: Los Angeles to Japan to China to the Philippines to Indonesia to Singapore to Hong Kong and back to Los Angeles.

To most people, this isn’t an itinerary, it’s a sentence. But Player is not your normal person, and at 60, he isn’t your typical golfer anymore either.

When the Senior PGA Tour event begins today at the Ojai Valley Inn and Country Club, Player isn’t worried only about his swing action or the loft of his wedges.

There’s much more on Player’s mind than golf. If it isn’t equine genetics, it’s vitamins, new fencing on his ranch in South Africa, working out, the joys of brown bread, figuring out how to get more amino acids into his diet and trying to improve his speech patterns.

Yeah, that would be nice.

“To have a vocabulary like Winston Churchill, what a dream it would be to speak like that,” Player said.

His golf career has been a dream since 1958 when Player won his first PGA Tour event, the Kentucky Derby Open. He has won 20 others, including the PGA Championship in 1962, the U.S. Open in 1965 and the Masters in 1974 and 1978.

Player also won the British Open three times and is one of only four to have won all of golf’s major titles. The others are Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus.

Last year, Player won his first Senior PGA Tour event in two years--the Bank One Classic in Lexington, Ky.--where Player enjoys the horse business in its home state.

“Kentucky, it’s a mini-heaven,” Player said. “The serenity, the white fences, the cleanliness, the ultimate horse atmosphere.”

Player raises thoroughbreds on his ranch and is in partnership on several horses with Allen Paulson, who owns Cigar. Horses are Player’s abiding joy, if you don’t count golf. Actually, it’s a dead heat between them.

“If you asked me if I would like to be the greatest golfer in the world or the biggest and best horse owner in the world, well, I’d have a tough time deciding, I will tell you that,” he said.

In the meantime, he doesn’t have to decide. Player continues to own and breed horses and to play competitive golf. He said he intends to keep score on the course for the foreseeable future.

“I do not want to play when I cannot win,” he said. “I don’t want to be a hanger-on. I think there’s nothing worse than hanging on when you cannot win, and I think I can continue to win for at least five years.”

Player said he doesn’t play because he needs to support his golf club manufacturing business or his course design business. He does it because, well, it’s a movable classroom for a student of life.

“Traveling around the world like I do, it’s very satisfying, the best education that exists in the world. It keeps you young, forces you to watch your diet and exercise.”

Player’s regimen has produced one top-10 finish so far in four senior tour events, but he usually plays better later in the year. And there’s always the tournament in Kentucky in September.

“Now that’s something to look forward to,” said Player, who sounded excited.

It must have been the beta carotene talking.

Senior Golf Notes

Bruce Devlin is the defending champion. His victory in a playoff over Dave Eichelberger is his only win on the Senior PGA Tour since he joined it in 1987. But Devlin has been working with Andy O’Brien, a teaching pro in Orlando, Fla., and sees improvement. “I definitely feel like I’m on the right track,” he said. . . . Four of the top 10 on this year’s money list are playing--John Bland (third), Simon Hobday (seventh), Jim Colbert (eighth) and Rick Acton (10th). Hale Irwin, Raymond Floyd, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and Arnold Palmer are not.