Word: player
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Even in this year of years, he still has one regret. He should have altered his putting stroke long ago. "Well, actually," he says, "it wasn't really a stroke before. It was more like this." And Gary Player stabs haltingly at an imagined ball. Now he putts with a smooth, almost gentle stroke, as counseled by his wife Vivienne, and he marvels at what might have been. "If I had changed it 20 years ago, I'm sure I could have won 200 tournaments...
...remark is no idle comment−Player does not talk casually about his abilities−nor is he boasting. He is simply expressing the rock-solid self-confidence that has sustained him through 22 remarkable years on the tour and brought him 114 victories. This season may turn out to be the best of all. He is, to begin with, 42 years old, an age when most great golfers are faltering, if they have not already collapsed. At 42, Arnold Palmer, for example, won no tournaments on the circuit and fell from third to 25th in earnings. But despite...
...this year, Player has earned more than $130,000 on the U.S. tour, raised his lifetime earnings to nearly $1.5 million and reaffirmed his long-held conviction, expressed frankly to anyone who asked, that he was the greatest golfer in the world. True, Jack Nicklaus has won more of the sport's major prizes than Player, 14 to 9, but the South African looks at the situation differently. He argues, correctly, that no other competitor has done so well in so many big tournaments around the world, coping with jet lag, strange surroundings and quirky greens. Player...
...remark captures the essence of the man−enthusiasm, an admiration for excellence, and the complete confidence that he is right, that the horse really is the best in the world. At his age, Player still hopes to become the first golfer in history to win the modern Grand Slam−the Masters, the P.G.A. and the British and U.S. Opens−in the same year. He is a quarter of the way there. Says he: "Don't say I'm an eternal optimist. I'm a positive thinker." And, of course, he will be using...
...agreement between the team owners and the Players' Association emasculated the famed reserve clause by allowing a player to become a free agent by playing out one option year after the expiration of his contract...