What Gary Wants

"I have five goals," said South Africa's matter-of-fact Gary Player when he first arrived in the U.S. "I want to win the U.S. Open, the British Open, the Masters and the P.G.A. And I want to be the top money winner on the American tour." That was five years ago, and Player's fellow pros have since learned that what Gary wants, Gary may get. At 26, Player is running out of goals: he won the British Open in 1959, the Masters in 1961, topped all pros in money winnings (with $64,540) last year. Last week at Philadelphia's suburban Aronimink Golf Club, Player passed another milepost: he became the first foreigner in 32 years to win the Professional Golfers Association championship.

Fighting the Army. The 171 pros who qualified for the 44th P.G.A. took one look at Aronimink's broad fairways and manicured greens, helpfully dampened by heavy showers, and pronounced the course "honest"--which is pro talk for "a cinch." But they reckoned without two handicaps: the hot, humid weather, and "Arnie's army"--the huge, unruly gallery that stampeded noisily around the course chasing everybody's favorite golfer, Arnold Palmer. "You can't think, can't concentrate," complained one pro. "It's damned upsetting to stand over a putt and hear feet pounding and people yelling."

Even Palmer got irritated. When a photographer thoughtlessly asked him to move aside so he could get a shot of U.S. Open Champ Jack Nicklaus, the usually affable Arnie flushed angrily, growled, "Hell, no." Exhausted from his record-smashing triumph fortnight ago in the British Open, his feathery putting touch turned leaden. Palmer wound up tied for 17th with an 8-over-par 288. Just about everybody had at least one bad round--all but Gary Player. Sacrificing distance for accuracy, Player switched from a driver to a No. 3 wood for tee shots, began a methodical assault on par. He shot a brilliant second-round 67, added a third-round 69 that gave him a two-stroke lead over the rest of the field with 18 holes to go.

Black for Strength. But when he showed up for the final round, characteristically dressed in black ("It gives me strength"), Player looked like anything but confident: his eyes were red-rimmed, his face was ashen. Remembering that horrible week at the Masters tournament last April when he wound up tied with Palmer, then blew a big lead in the next day's 18-hole playoff, Player had not slept a wink. "I kept remembering that Masters playoff, and I began to worry," he said. "I don't want to be known as a choker." For 18 holes, he played a grim, conservative game, got only two birdies, only two bogeys, for a par 70. Par was just good enough to finish one stroke ahead of Bob Goalby, runner-up in the 1961 U.S. Open, two ahead of burly Jack Nicklaus.

Said Player as he pocketed the $13,000 check that brings this year's winnings to $41,513: "This will come in very handy. I've got a wife, three kids and a mother-in-law to support, and a traveling nurse to pay. I'm a very hungry golfer."

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