Olympic accolade for golf’s pocket Hercules

By Paul Trow

Gary Player will captain South Africa’s golf team at next year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

The nine-time Major winner, who will turn 80 on November 1, has captured 165 tournaments worldwide and has been a professional golfer for 63 years.

Player, who captained the International Team during the Presidents Cup on three occasions and also made several appearances for South Africa in the World Cup of Golf, said he was honoured to captain South Africa upon golf’s return to the Games after an absence of 112 years.

“I am delighted to accept the captaincy and look forward to leading our top professionals on the fairways of the Rio Olympics next year,” he said. “This is such a big moment for our country and for the game of golf as a whole, and I am proud to be a part of this. Golf and the Olympic movement share the same core values, so this is a very big opportunity to grow the game around the world. Our goal is to earn South Africa its first Olympic gold medal in a sport that has always done this country proud.”

Player’s Olympic captaincy was recommended by the South African Golf Association (SAGA) and ratified by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC).

“Gary is our greatest golfer and one of this country’s greatest ambassadors,” said SAGA president Gerhard Conradie. “His career on the golf course and his philanthropic efforts off it embody everything of the Olympic spirit, and we are proud that he has accepted to lead South Africa’s first Olympic golf team to Rio.”

The announcement was made at Soweto Country Club where Player’s remarkable career and contribution to South African golf was recognised with a golf day in his honour staged by the Sunshine Tour and the City of Johannesburg.

Selwyn Nathan, executive director of the Sunshine Tour, applauded the decision to appoint Player as captain. “Our Sunshine Tour professionals have tremendous respect for Gary, and his experience and leadership ability will be invaluable to the team that is selected. We all saw the effect Gary had on a team when he led the International Team to the only ever tie in the Presidents Cup in South Africa in 2003.

“As golf’s undisputed global ambassador, it is very fitting that the game’s return to the Olympic fold for the first time in more than a century should feature a man recognised worldwide for his contribution to the game, and we are proud to have him lead our South African team.”

Player was born in Johannesburg, the youngest of three children. When he was eight years old, his mother died from cancer. Although his father was often away from home working in gold mines, he took a loan in order to buy a set of clubs so Gary could play at Jo’burg’s Virginia Park course. At the age of 14, Player played his first round and parred his first three holes. At 16, he resolved to become the best player in the world and he turned professional a year later.

Player married Vivienne Verwey (sister of fellow professional golfer Bob Verwey) in January 1957, four years after turning pro. Together they have six children – Jennifer, Marc, Wayne, Michele, Theresa and Amanda – and 21 grandchildren. During the early days of his career, Player would travel from tournament to tournament with wife, six children, nanny and a tutor in tow, and, by his own estimation, he has clock-ed up more air miles than any other sports person in history.

Golf has appeared only twice at the Olympic Games – in 1900 and 1904 when only the USA, Canada and Great Britain competed.

No other team captains have yet been named, but Rory McIlroy has been campaigning for Paul McGinley, who masterminded Europe’s victory at Gleneagles in last year’s Ryder Cup, to skipper the Irish team. And Jamie Spence, a former European Tour stalwart from Sussex, was given a roving brief at the beginning of last year to keep an eye on the build-up by the leading UK players.

Two individual 72-hole stroke-play tournaments are planned in Rio and the provisional dates are August 11-14 (men) and August 17-20 (women) – in the event of a tie for any of the first three positions, a three-hole playoff will determine the medal winners.

These events, each contested by 60 players, will be played over the Reserva de Marapendi course in the Barra da Tijuca suburb of the city that has been designed by Pennsylvania-based Gil Hanse, with input from LPGA hall of famer Amy Alcott.

The President of the Rio Games’ organizing committee, Arthur Nuzman, said: “As [the 2016 Games] marks the return of golf to the Olympic Games after over a century of absence, this course represents the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the sport. It will enable Rio to host important events in the international calendar and it will be an example of sustainability and preservation of an environmentally protected area. This course will be an excellent facility for the practice and development of golf and will inspire millions of youth across Brazil and the globe. We look forward to welcoming the athletes and spectators to the course in 2016.”

After the Games, the course will become a public facility and will be used to enhance golf’s profile within Brazil and, according to the organising committee, this would represent “one of the most important Olympic Games legacies for sport development in the country”.

Qualification will be based on world rankings as of July 11, 2016. The top 15 players of each gender will qualify automatically, with a limit of four golfers per country. The remaining spots will go to the highest-ranked players from countries that do not already have two golfers qualified.

The International Golf Federation, the body that liaised with the International Olympic Committee to bring the sport back into the Games, has guaranteed that at least one golfer from the host nation and each geographical region (Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania) will qualify.

Tagged Gary Player, Olympic Golf