When it comes to Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus, you’d be hard-pressed to find two golfers as successful as they have been.
Nicklaus has 18 majors to his name and won them across the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Player, too, also succeeded over a long period, with his first win coming in 1958 and his final one coming way down the line in 1978.
Their longevity should be lauded and rightly is in the modern day but when it comes to the modern day stars like Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and others, it remains to be seen if they can do it for quite as long as Nicklaus and Player did.
Indeed, when asked that very question back at The Masters in 2016, Player had his say.
Gary Player’s comments on the modern day golfer
To win over three decades like Player and Nicklaus did is quite the achievement.
We’ve seen Tiger Woods do it with wins in the 90s, 2000s and 10s but in the main, it’s a tough old ask.
However, for Gary Player, he felt it was something that could be done, if things went a certain way.
“People always liked, at the time I vividly remember thinking when we played, oh, it was more competitive when Ben Hogan and Sam Snead and Jimmy Demaret played. If you want to get a shock, there’s a picture in this clubhouse somewhere that must have been taken, I would say, in either the late ’30s or the early ’40s, I don’t know when, and you just look at those players on that wall, how competitive it was before we played,” Player said.
“And then we came along, there were a lot of wonderful golfers that could win majors, and the same applies today. Professional golf is so healthy and such wonderful guys playing and so talented and so many of them, I wouldn’t condense it down to three. It’s very, very close and any one of them could come through and eventually become one of the big three. And will they win as many tournaments as we did? I sincerely hope so.
“It would be wonderful if Rory McIlroy could win the Grand Slam this week to join us. It would give golf a shot in the arm. Professional golf is very healthy, but amateur golf, which is the heart of the game, is unhealthy. Rounds are going down, golf courses are closing up, they’re not developing many more golf courses. So we need something that is going to give it a shot in the arm.
“These young guys are terrific guys, wonderful swings, and have such wonderful opportunities in life. I mean, they have got their own jets. They make a million— What is the first prize this week? $1.8 million. My goodness me, more than I won in my entire career winning all those tournaments on the regular tour, but that’s great. That’s how we must progress. It’s fantastic and very exciting, and I can’t wait to see— I’ll be here the whole week to watch with what happens.”
How old Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus were when they won their last majors
Nicklaus and Player are two absolute pillars of golf and their success is rightly celebrated.
As for their longevity, this also needs admiring.
Nicklaus rocked up to the 1986 Masters and won at the age of 46, while Player himself also won in his 40s, capturing the 1978 Masters at the age of 43.
For the likes of Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, those sort of results will breed confidence and given how much focus is on the modern golfer in terms of being an athlete, there’s no reason they can’t keep winning as Nicklaus and Player did.
Certainly, the next decade will be exciting and quite where Scheffler and McIlroy end up is something we all want to see.
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