Traveling with Gary Player

Golf great's early days are recalled

When Gary Player first arrived on the PGA Tour he combined with Jim Gaquin to write stories for South African papers. (Andrew Redington/AFP/Getty Images)

It reads like a route that only the folks at AAA could map out, but Jim Gaquin never needed their services. All he had to do was follow the professional golf circuit.

The year was 1961, and what began in San Francisco, and wound through Phoenix, Tucson, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Pensacola, was a schedule that took him to St. Petersburg and Miami, Houston and San Antonio, Hot Springs and Memphis, Detroit and Grand Rapids, Baltimore and Hartford, Washington and Chicago, then back to the West Coast for tournaments in Seattle, Portland, and Bakersfield. Miles and miles of travel, and if it all has faded with time, Gaquin need only flip through his archives to jump-start the emotions and precious memories.

"We had so many great times," said Gaquin. "We met a lot of wonderful people."

Gaquin was press secretary and later tournament director for what was the PGA Tour back then, and when he married Lois in 1959 she, too, loved life on the road, surrounded by a game they cherished.

"There was a lot more of a community feel when we used to drive to tournaments," said Lois. "Players all stayed at the same hotel, they brought their families, and there'd be large dinners together."

While their travels from the 1950s through the '70s were all memorable, it is the 1961 season that holds a special place in their hearts. That was the year they were swept into the fascinating world of Gary Player, who was the face of international golf long before it became part of the everyday landscape. As press secretary, it was part of Gaquin's job to pen stories for various newspapers interested in their local players, which meant writing about Frank Stranahan for the Toledo Blade and Paul Harney for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and into that environment walked Player.

He wasn't quite yet part of the legendary "Big Three" alongside Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. To the American public, Player was still somewhat of a mystery. A diminutive man with great strength, Player was from South Africa, but up until then had played much of his golf at various corners of the world that didn't quite resonate with American golf fans. While he had won the British Open in 1959, it wasn't until Player captured the Masters in 1961 that fans seemed to get interested, but to this day the Gaquins aren't sure he ever secured the celebrity he should have.

"He probably should have been recognized a little more," said Jim Gaquin, who has lived for years on Cape Cod with his wife. "With Arnold and Jack, [Player] was a bit overshadowed, but to us he always had a special appeal."

Gaquin recalls the day Fred Corcoran, the Cambridge-born character who by all accounts was the force behind organizing the PGA Tour, came up to him and talked of a unique golfer he had seen overseas. Player was 17 at the time, but Corcoran told Gaquin "that this kid was something else, and sure enough, he was."

Player's first win on American soil came six years later, at the 1958 Kentucky Derby Open, and 50 years later the recognition for a remarkable athlete is still trickling in. The latest honor will be presented Monday evening when Player is given the Francis Ouimet Award for lifelong contributions to golf at the Francis Ouimet Scholarship Fund's 59th annual banquet. Some 1,400 will jam the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, and if the two happiest people in attendance are Jim and Lois Gaquin, don't be surprised.

Player's early years in the United States were of great intrigue, mostly because so few regulars on the PGA Tour were foreign-born. But if his story was slow to spread here, the same cannot be said for back in his native land. South Africans took a great interest in Player's progress in the US, so to help facilitate that cause, Gaquin was called upon.

"I was his ghostwriter. We put together articles and sent them back home," said Gaquin.

Most of the stories were for the Johannesburg Argus, though Gaquin and Player also prepared some for the Die Landstem, the national Afrikaans language paper. For the most part, the stories dealt with life on the American tour, with the places Player visited and the tournaments in which he played. Player routinely offered his perspective on matters such as the Crosby pro-am clambake at Pebble Beach, or a rules incident that received great publicity, or even one of his favorite characters in golf, Max Faulkner.

In fact, one of Gaquin's favorite memories is of the golf clinic he attended for leprosy patients in Carville, La., where Faulkner was one of the star attractions. Player was so impressed by that, he sat down with Gaquin and they wrote one of their columns about it.

So many years have passed, Gaquin had forgotten just how many articles he and Player did together, but with Monday's dinner approaching, he glanced over his meticulous journal and discovered that they wrote a lot more than he imagined. Perhaps as many as 35 were prepared, and Gaquin is reminded of just what Player was all about. Sure, great golf, but he was, said Gaquin, a wordly man, with interests.

"He would cover a wide range of topics," said Gaquin. "He was pretty assertive and didn't hold back."

Now 72, Player has in recent years stepped up his passion to see physical fitness become more important to not only athletes, but the general public, and he will speak to this subject whenever possible. It is, said Gaquin, something that has always been important to Player.

"Give him that," said Gaquin. "He always was fit, always staying in shape."

By the mid-1960s, with television having changed the way Americans viewed sports, Palmer, Nicklaus, and Player had brought the game into the public consciousness. United and identified as "The Big Three," they dominated golf to the tune of 161 PGA Tour wins and 34 major championships. Palmer, of course, was "The King," Nicklaus "The Golden Bear," and Player "The Black Knight," and all three have their rightful places in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Their legacies also are secured, Palmer for the way he made the game exciting, Nicklaus for the way he showed that power and precision could go in tandem, Player for the way he traveled the world to spread the joy of golf. The fact that they now will be joined as recipients of the Francis Ouimet Award (Palmer received it in 1997, Nicklaus last year) is a coup for the Ouimet Fund, and so, too, will it be a thrill for Jim and Lois Gaquin.

Meeting up with old friends remains a priceless commodity.

Jim McCabe can be reached at jmccabe@globe.com.