Golf: Evergreen Gary still a Player

I'm sitting deep in a plush, luxury armchair in the lounge of the Augusta clubhouse, quietly slipping into the land of nod, jet-lagged.

As I recline gently, eyelids drooping, a familiar voice reverberates around my brain. Gary Player has arrived.

Honestly, it is ridiculous. The man will be 75 this year, yet he's as lean and tanned as a Hollywood film star and, having flown in from South Africa yesterday - 16 hours non-stop - he has been in the gym and done 1000 sit-ups.

And if his body has the look of a 30- year-old, his mind is equally vibrant. The pressing issues of South Africa's future, America's obesity problem, future diets of top sportsmen, Tiger Woods' infidelities, players' back problems and how the likes of Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and Byron Nelson would have got along in the modern game come tumbling out of his mind.

Where to start ? How about the limitless potential of the human mind and body when encouraged to stretch its horizons? He tells a story to illustrate the point.

"I was competing in the 1960s in a tournament at St Nom-la-Breteche, outside Paris. Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and myself were all there and we'd committed to fly on to Australia for their Open at Royal Melbourne. But on the final morning, we were fogged in and they had to delay the last round to the Monday. Jack and Arnold reckoned they couldn't make it, but my agent told me that if I flew that night, I could reach Melbourne two hours before I was due to tee off.

"This was before fast jet aircraft existed. I went by Constellation and you didn't go over Asia in those days. From Paris, we flew to New York, then to Los Angeles before heading down over the Pacific, via Hawaii, Fiji and Sydney before Melbourne. It took 40 hours and I arrived two and a half hours before I teed off with, incidentally, a new set of clubs and new golf balls. And you know what? I won that tournament by seven shots."

So don't tell Gary Player something is impossible. He is equally convinced of one thing - winning a major nowadays is much easier. I asked him about that because I wondered; did he think Tiger Woods had strayed because it had all become too easy, too boring?

Player has never commented about Woods' behaviour. But he says "For sure, Tiger has lacked a Nicklaus or Palmer to push him all the time, like I had. I do think it is much easier for him to win a major than it was for us in our day.

"To win a golf tournament on the US Tour now is tougher than when we played. No question. But to win a major was tougher for us because look at the people we had around, besides Nicklaus and Palmer - Lee Trevino, Billy Casper, Tom Watson, Tom Weiskopf, Johnny Miller. Those guys could really play.

"I have great respect for the young players today, but I don't see those sort of players in a major championship."

Of Woods' indiscretions, he is philosophical. "Yes, what he did was wrong, but he said 'I am sorry' and he must now go ahead and play golf. In the Bible it says you have got to forgive. "I think Tiger can regain the aura he once had because I think generally people are forgiving in their hearts."

Augusta represents an oasis of nostalgia. Old greats rub shoulders with today's stars. Yet are there, he asks rhetorically, three players now who could beat Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and Byron Nelson? Or, for that matter, Nicklaus, Palmer and Player?

"If you gave them the equipment they have today, and remember the modern golf ball goes 60 yards further, plus the grooves for stopping the ball, bunkers that are all uniform, and fairways cut like snooker tables ... plus the jet aircraft we use today; if those guys had all those things, I don't think anyone would beat them."

It's fair to say America fascinates and horrifies Player in equal measure. He points to the nation's obesity, citing the fact that 25 per cent of this nation's youth are obese.

"In 50 years' time, it is estimated 100 million Americans, one in three, will have diabetes. The bill will be frightening," says Player.

His solution? Well, 1000 sit-ups a day and a strictly controlled diet are clearly doing good things for him. In his 75th year, Gary Player remains a one-off.

Peter Bills is a sports writer for Independent News & Media in London.