What’s it like flying with Gary Player to the Masters? We found out

The horse they call Double Grand Slam is in last place. Gary Player is not happy. He sits back in his chair and crosses his arms.

“This doesn’t look good,” he says under his breath.

From his hotel room in San Antonio, the 90-year-old Hall-of-Famer is glued to his laptop as the TAB Empress Club Stakes unfolds in South Africa. He’s got a plane to catch, but first, he needs to see if his precious bosom can work a miracle.

The race approaches the 500 final when the Double Grand Slam begins to make a move. She passes one and then another. And then another. The Double Grand Slam has seven lanes to fill, but that’s it Running now. The player stands up and rests his arms on the table. A framed photograph of a horse taunts him ironically from the wall. A call comes in on his phone, but he quickly mutes it and pushes it away. The Double Grand Slam is up for grabs. The TV commentator undertakes:

And that’s it! Long race! It’s all Double Grand Slam!

The player leans back, smiles, closes his eyes and raises both arms in the air as if he had just won one of his nine major titles. Thirty minutes later, he’s still giddy when his Lexus courtesy car pulls up to his private jet at San Antonio International — “My horse won the race today, the big race!” He tells the crew – and he’s still beaming as his eight-seat Bombardier Challenger 350 speeds down the escape. The player downs a glass of green vegetable juice like a shot, picks up his phone and tries to keep up with the flood of congratulatory messages pouring in. Fifty and more. He responds to each one – voice in text – with some quick but thoughtful offers of gratitude.

“I’m on my way,” he tells the latter. “I’ll call you when I get off.”

Gary Player is going to the Masters.

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IF THEY ASK YOU why are we on a private jet with gary player, well… we just asked. He likes to boast that no man has flown more miles than him, and while we’re not here to dispute the validity of that statement, it did make us wonder what it might be like to fly with the world’s most traveled golfer.

The player and his team were fine with it. So was Vista Jet, the private aviation company that has made Player waves around the globe in the past year. When a Saturday morning jaunt took place from San Antonio to Augusta en route to the Masters, a luxury flight to the first championship of the year was secured.

Up in the clouds, perhaps somewhere above a golf course he’s designed, the Player collects a generous dollop of honey, drops it into his coffee and stirs it. He’s dressed as you’d expect: all black with a black knight logo on his polo and a sport coat on top, which he wears because his dad once told him “good style is always in style.” When his pant legs are pulled up far enough, you can see the Masters logo on his socks. He still plays golf four times a week — “I’ve beaten my age now over 3,000 times in a row and I still shoot par,” he says — and works out like crazy. Sometimes on the plane, he’ll do push-ups or tuck his legs under a seat and do squats.

He doesn’t like carbs, but today he’s opting for a banana nut muffin. Such a flight is nothing like the way he used to travel, when he and his late wife, Vivienne, crossed oceans with six children, who sometimes napped in the aisle.

But the reason he racked up all those miles — too many to count, he says — and became the sport’s first global superstar is quite simple: He wanted to win more golf tournaments than anyone else, and to do that, he couldn’t be complacent. He didn’t buy a home in the United States until a few years ago, meaning he had to frequently cross the globe from his native South Africa. He won in America. England. Japan. Australia. Brazil. France. Chile. More than 160 professional titles.

His schedule isn’t as busy now as it was in his playing days, but he’s not exactly sedentary. He was in Texas for a clinic at the Valero Texas Open, and after the Masters he headed to Florida and then Long Island. Then Texas, United Kingdom, back to South Africa, then back to the UK.

In the 1960s and 1970s, most Player trips required several vacations. Sometimes up to six. He insists he would have earned more degrees if he had lived in the United States all those years. Although the grueling travel schedule helped shape one of Player’s main drivers since his 20s: He had to learn to treat his body properly to be able to withstand this lifestyle.

The player doesn’t have any flying superstitions (he doesn’t believe in words) or quirks, but he’s picked up tricks along the way. He likes to exercise before and after flights. He avoids large airplane meals and stays hydrated with water or fruit or vegetable juices. He likes to read, although the biggest key is sleep. He tries to get at least nine hours a night.

“Jack Nicklaus said that traveling with me is like traveling by yourself,” says Player. “He says, ‘Gary gets on the plane next to me and I say, Oh, this time change is so hard. I come back and he sleeps the whole journey.’

The player does not sleep on this flight. He is very passionate about his horse, keen to return to the Masters and, as you probably know, Gary Player loves to talk. For everything. (He even breaks to call the writer’s parents.) Some of his answers wander, but his mind is still sharp. This will be his 68th time at the Masters. When The Player made his debut at Augusta National in 1957, at the age of 21, Ben Hogan was still on the course; when, aged 73, he made his final Masters appearance – that was in 2009 – Rory McIlroy was playing for the first time.

His resume on golf’s most prestigious tour is hard to top.

He won three Masters, in 1961, ’74 and ’78. In ’61, he became the first international winner. In ’78, at age 42, he started the final round seven shots behind.

“My son Wayne said, ‘Dad, you’re playing really well if you can shoot 65 tomorrow and win by one shot,'” says Player.

He shot a 64. The player birdied seven of his last 10 holes and shot a 30 on the back nine to win by one and win the last of his nine major titles. That final round of 64 tied a course record and is still unranked among the best final rounds on tour.

He has 15 Masters top 10s and made the cut at 62; His 52 Masters starts is a record.

“Augusta is a very, very special place,” he says. “It’s the most developed tournament in the world and it’s the most beautiful place for a tournament – it’s an integral part of my life.”

He walked down Magnolia Lane when he arrived at the site, though now he instead says a prayer as he walks down it. He loves the Champions Dinner, but his favorite part of the week is the ceremonial tee shots he’ll hit on Thursday morning alongside Tom Watson and Nicklaus.

“They’re cheering and giving you their love,” says Player. He sometimes gets up on his chair to make a point. “It’s lumpy. And you say, ‘They’re doing it for me?’ I’m not that important. So it makes you very humble. And you should not think that you are important because you are not in God’s eyes, you are just another man. And it’s just love that you’re given and you go out with that first one and it brings back memories of when you first broke up.”

But Player, one-third of the Big 3 that helped golf flourish in the 1960s, doesn’t believe in legacy. He thinks you just have to do your best while you’re here before time runs out. That’s why he and his late wife created The Gary & Vivienne Player Foundation (there’s one in South Africa and another in the United States), where they raise money and support underprivileged children.

He laughs at the idea of ​​traveling less; likes and likes meeting people and likes work. He also sets the time. He has a thick journal with a worn, brown cover full of handwritten speeches and notes that he keeps in his Hudson Sutler locker. He calls for the bag and takes the book.

“I’m a big believer that the pen is mightier than the sword,” Player says, flipping through the journal, looking for a passage he recently wrote for a speech fix. He finds it, unfolds a piece of paper and begins: Something changed in my life, somewhere along the way. Eventually, I started winning tournaments. I was very focused, not relaxed. I felt like I had a suit of armor impervious to almost anything but a bullet. My mind really went into overdrive. Something inexplicable occurred to me. I was on my way – and I was going to be a champion.

“Don’t you have someone else write your speeches?” I ask.

“No, that’s lazy,” he says. He points to his head, right above his ear. “That’s what you have to use as you grow up. You have to exercise your mind.”

AT 10:30 AMChallenger descends and cuts through the clouds, revealing an idyllic scene. The airport is 60 miles and 14 minutes away when the Player calls Susan, his girlfriend, who had just texted him about the horse race. They talk and laugh. Susan laughs all the time, says Player. He likes her for it. He says it is the key to longevity.

“It was incredible!” says Susan. “When she was that far, I thought there was no way she was going to win!”

The player leans forward and smiles while talking on the phone. He glances out the window. His heart starts pumping again.

“I’m still very excited,” he says. “Fortunately, we started talking and I never thought about the horse. But now I’m thinking about the horse again!”

It’s moments like these — the serene feeling of flying, the adrenaline rush of a horse race, the walks down Magnolia Lane and the Thursday morning shots he feels at the Masters — that make him feel alive, which he believes is a gift. Because Gary Player says there are people who exist but not necessarily live. He knows what he’s doing.

You can contact the author at joshua.berhow@golf.com.