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Gary Player is often cited as the man responsible for one of golf’s most famous quotes – “The Harder I Practice, the Luckier I Get”.

That’s not entirely true, although his use of the quote, along with Arnold Palmer, did help make it famous enough to be trotted out by every coach disillusioned with the effort their players are putting in.

As with golf, where he won nine major championships, Player has also been pretty lucky in business, although a recent dispute with son Marc hasn’t painted either in the best light.

Sport24 reporting below:

Gary Player’s son, Marc Player, has expressed sadness over what he considers a “deteriorated” relationship with his father.

This follows last week’s news that the legendary South African golfer would receive a settlement fee of $5 million (around R87 million) having entered into an arbitration dispute with the Gary Player Group – his company operated by Marc – over ownership and naming rights.

Now, the Gary Player Group has confirmed that it will be seeking a counter claim beyond the resolved arbitration.

“Marc Player, individually, was never part of the dispute,” Darren Heitner, a representative of the Gary Player Group, said in a statement on Thursday.

Further arbitration and legal battles will continue going forward, but Marc made a point of stating how his relationship with Gary has taken strain:

“Anyone that really knows me would agree that I have always tried to help my parents with everything from the business to their personal lives.

“This has been a long, tiring, costly, emotional and tedious process pitting father against son. I have genuinely tried to reconcile with them and amicably resolve our dispute and it is a shame that we have not been able to do so due to their new advisor, Dave King and his malicious and continuous tortious interference in what should have been a private family matter.”

Always disappointing to see a family spat playing out in public.

Whilst Gary’s success on the course has made him a golfing legend, it is perhaps time that legacy is weighed up against his overt support for South Africa’s apartheid regime.

As New Frame reported recently, he was a big fan of segregation:

In his 1966 book Grand Slam Golf, Player wrote at the age of 30, “I must say now, and clearly, that I am of the South Africa of Verwoerd and apartheid”. He later declared that “a good deal of nonsense is talked of and indeed thought about ‘segregation’, segregation of one kind or another is practised everywhere in the world”…

Player’s 1966 book makes it clear that he was in complete support of segregation. By the early 1970s, he had graduated to allowing the National Party government’s information department to use him to hide behind.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Gary fans. It is possible to be both a great golfer and a sub-par human being.

As countries around the world ramped up the pressure on the apartheid regime with sports bans and trade bans, Gary actively worked with the National Party government to try and curry favour with foreign countries:

“At our request, he wrote letters to carefully selected top executives of major companies in the United States … inviting them to visit South Africa and play golf with him for a whole week. They were all keen golf players, and a private invitation from a bank for a week’s golf with Gary Player is easily accepted,” [then secretary of information Eschel Rhoodie] writes.

“Ten invitations from [then South African minister of foreign affairs] Pik Botha would carry no weight.”

By day, the executives would play golf with Player. By night, they’d meet with South African business and political stakeholders, writes Rhoodie. The Cabinet compensated Player for this work to replace the money he “would otherwise have won had he been away on the professional circuit”.

That’s right – he actually made vast sums of money by playing ball with the National Party. Read the rest of that report here.

Gary is also tight mates with President Donald Trump, with the White House incumbent announcing earlier this year that Gary would become one of the first two international athletes to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The other is Swedish golfer Annika Sörenstam.

Trump and Gary are so tight that the president seeks him out for advice. This from a New York Times report last month:

Trump, current and former intelligence officials told the Times, has “a short attention span,” frequently “veers off on tangents,” and “rarely, if ever, reads intelligence reports.” He “rarely absorbs information that he disagrees with or that runs counter to his worldview,” the officials said.

…the Times report, like others before it, paints a portrait of an easily-distracted president who is too lazy to do the basic work of his job and who relies instead on rumors and opinions offered in conservative media and from pals like retired golfer Gary Player.

That’s the president of the United States ignoring his own intelligence agencies’ reports, and turning to a man who overtly supported the National Party and its apartheid ideologies for his opinions.

In the dispute between Gary and his son, you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t side with the retired golfer.

[sources:sport24&newframe&nytimes]