Player returns to Aronimink still looking to play

NEWTOWNSQUARE» Jack Nicklaus asked his old friend Gary Player during a recent phone call just how many rounds of golf he still played each week.

The Black Knight of golf, Player, who turns 85 on Nov. 1, said he scheduled a tee time every day he could — including a recent round with Charles Barkley — and would play seven days a week if not for his wife battling pancreatic cancer.

Nicklaus lamented, “I’ve played five times in the last two months.”

“Now if you look at my shape compared to him ...,” Player said, laughing, and as his sentence trailed off he flexed, looking more like Jack LaLanne than any old octogenarian bound for the retirement home.

Player was just happy he had a friend nearly his age to talk to about golf.

“I’m 85 and all my friends are dead,” he said.

Player was back Saturday at Aronimink Golf Club, the site of his 1962 PGA Championship victory.

Aronimink, designed by Donald Ross, is where Player won his first PGA Championship, by one shot over Bob Goalby. It’s a course he still plays when he can — always grateful for the opportunity.

“I had a putt here the other day, the exact putt I had when I won, when I beat Bob Goalby, my friend,” Player said. “I had the exact putt and I said, ‘How lucky am I.’”

Player and his wife, Vivienne, have stayed with their daughter through the COVID-19 pandemic in Schwenksville and will return to their South Florida home at the end of the month.

“I’ve been with my wife for 70 years. Whew, it is a tough thing to live with,” he said. “But we’ve all got our cross to bear somewhere.”

But while he’s in Pennsylvania, Player has enjoyed as many courses as he can in the area, even playing in a group with Barkley earlier this month at Commonwealth National Golf Club in Horsham. Player quipped he told Barkley, “you were my size when you were 5.”