Much more than a game for Player
By KEN FIDLIN -- Toronto Sun
GEORGE, South Africa -- There is an old joke about the chatterbox who, when asked the time, feels compelled to explain how to build a watch. That's Gary Player. Ask him about the prospects for his team in the Presidents Cup and he'll deliver a compelling dissertation on golf as a tool for sociological and economic revolution.
At the age of 68, he is as enthusiastic about life as he was 40 years ago. Perhaps even more so because he has experienced so much of it. And God bless him for that.
He has seen his country dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century heralding an era where hope exists for all, not just the privileged whites. He is passionate about the possibilities and sees this event as a catalyst for his country's evolving democracy.
"Our biggest problem is poverty," he said. "I see a measly four million people touring South Africa every year. When you think of Orlando, 50 million, and Spain, without anywhere near the infrastructure and the beauty we have, 40 million.
"If we can get 20 million people a year (to vacation in South Africa), it would make a big dent in our poverty. That's my big dream: To get 20 million tourists here a year.
"Nobody is aware of what we have in this country: The wineries, the rainbow coalition of people, the beautiful golf courses, these magnificent mountains and this coastline of 1,000 miles of what (Americans) have on 17-Mile Drive."
He was referring to the stretch of coastline along the Monterey Peninsula, encapsulating Pebble Beach Golf Links, that annually draws millions of awestruck tourists.
That's the message he wants to send to the rest of the world: South Africa is open for business and pleasure.
And to his own people, the message that golf can deliver is just as compelling. All Player needed to do was to mention the names of the top players on each of the teams competing here this week.
Tiger Woods, the No. 1 player in the world, is black. So is Vijay Singh, the world's No. 2. Together, opponents and rivals that they are, they are powerful symbols in a country where such possibilities were denied to so many for so long.
"Young kids sitting in Soweto and other villages in South Africa, when they see the No. 1 and No. 2 players in the world are both black, it's an awful big dream that can be fulfilled," Player said.
"In the past, we have been starved. We went through a stage in the apartheid era where we could not participate and not travel to a lot of countries. Now it's a dream that they can live. It's a very big thing for us."
This is not to say that South Africa, just slightly larger geographically than Ontario, is one big happy family. Shantytowns cover huge acreages all over the country in odd juxtaposition to nearby lavish estates that represent a separate, largely unattainable, world.
Apartheid may be dead but the economic boundaries that were once held in place by law have been crossed only by a few. Player hopes the trickle will one day become a flood.
"We have to build a good middle class in our country. It's progressing," he said. "In the corporations that are due here (at the Presidents Cup) in the old days you might have seen one black gentleman, now you see 30-40% of the businessmen are black who are participating."
There is more, much more, as there always is when Gary Player speaks. The words tumble over each other in a torrent of hope and enthusiasm.
"This is about so much more than the outcome of a golf tournament," he said. "It's about what the Presidents Cup can do for what is now, at this stage, a short-lived democracy.
"For our country and tourism, this is the greatest event that has ever taken place and it serves a greater purpose than just a golf tournament."
When he was done, nobody dared ask him the time.
