Little Big Man

It is paradoxical, but entirely in keeping with his fighter’s temperament, that Gary Player, the Little Maestro of South African golf, designs and builds BIG golf courses.

This came to mind with the news that Player’s newest local offering, panoramic Blair Atholl, has been voted SA Golf Digest’s Best New Course.

The Top Three courses are already Player designs, Leopard Creek, Gary Player CC (Sun City) and The Links at Fancourt, and there is every chance that Blair Atholl could join or even displace one of them when it is included on Golf Digest’s list of the Top 100.

As luck would have it I was fortunate to meet up with Player during a sponsored day at another of the many new courses which have recently sprung up – Annika Sorenstam’s at Euphoria Golf Estate and Hydro which has joined the like of Zebula and Elements in the Waterberg; an area where new layouts are appearing like mushrooms after the rain.

Player, as always, was the embodiment of energy and enthusiasm and it struck me, when I had the honour of introducing him to MasterCard’s banking guests, that South African golf owes him a greater gratitude than acknowledgement of his amazing achievements – 9 Major titles (including the Grand Slam), 9 Senior Majors, 5 World Match Play titles, 13 South African Opens, 7 Australian Opens, 163 tournament victories world-wide…

He is also almost solely responsible for keeping local golf courses abreast of the rest of the world and ensuring that South Africa can compete as a golfing destination – a tourist attraction that remains buoyant in spite of the economic downturn.

I well remember, years ago, Player being castigated by committee members of Mowbray Golf Club for criticising the design values and condition of their course.

He was being his usual forthright self, speaking from the heart and trying to put across his experiences of the kinds of courses being built in the rest of the world (particularly the United States) but his remarks were roundly condemned.

Some years later, in the late 70s, Player would turn his hand to creating South Africa’s first truly international course at Sun City while Mowbray has long since lost its status as a venue for South African Opens.

In partnership with Sol Kerzner Player introduced bent grass, adopted the so-called USGA specs, dug deep bunkers, plotted imaginatively different holes and insisted on conditioning the like of which had never before been seen in South Africa.

He had a hand in the first residential and resort estates (Sun City, Elephant Hills, Dainfern, Fancourt, Erinvale, Lost City, Fish River Sun) and took on the challenge of pushing South Africa onto the world roster with Johann Rupert’s Leopard Creek and Hasso Plattner’s Links.

Without Player’s vision, persuasion and determination, which inspired the like of Peter Matkovich and Ernie Els, South Africa might have lagged behind in the quest to attract the tourism dollar (pound, mark or yuan) and not have been able to offer a wild life/golf experience that is unique in the world – not to mention combining those two with the British Lions tour, the Confederation Cup and the 2010 Football World Cup. At the age of 73 he puts all of us to shame with his work ethic, energy and love of life but I have just one question: for such a little guy Gary, why do you make your courses so long?!