Gary Player's Masters win kicked open doors to international golfers

“Growing the game” is a popular phrase in golf these days, and Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters Tournament are doing their part to make golf more accessible outside of the United States and Europe.

The Asia-Pacific Amateur was created in 2009, and the Latin America Amateur followed in 2015. Both tournaments offer spots in the Masters to the winner.

Growing the game is hardly a new concept for the Masters. Foreign-born players have been a part of the tournament since the beginning, and founders Bobby Jones and Clif­ford Roberts did what they could to entice players from other countries to play in the Masters.

In the tournament’s early years, it wasn’t cheap or simple to get to Augusta, and only a handful of international players competed in the first nine events.

That slowly began to change when the tournament resumed after World War II, and by the late 1950s their ranks started to increase significantly.

One player who wasn’t afraid to travel was South Africa’s Gary Play­er. His father, a gold miner, wrote Roberts to ask him how his son could earn an international invitation to play in the Masters.

“Mr. Roberts told him, ‘Go ahead and pass the hat around your club,’ ” Player said.

After Player debuted in 1957, it wasn’t long before he became a contender. Player put together three solid rounds in 1961 and then had to sweat out a Monday finish.

Player reached the clubhouse in 280, but Arnold Palmer held a one-shot lead coming up the 18th hole and was in good shape to become the tournament’s first repeat champion.

But disaster struck Palmer, who found a bunker on his approach and then took four more shots to complete the hole.

The double bogey left Player as the tournament’s first international champion, and the victory served as an inspiration.

“It was a very important thing because it gave encouragement for many to follow suit,” Player said. “There’s an international player who can do it. It was really not the desire then to play around the world. When I first came to the U.S. we played 32 tournaments for $800,000.”

Player would go on to be an annual contender at Augusta, and he won the Masters two more times in the 1970s.

As the game’s foremost authority on travel, Player was tireless in promoting the game and telling international audiences about Augusta National and the Masters.

Player was a mentor to Seve Balle­steros, the tournament’s next international champion. The Spaniard won twice in the 1980s and helped set off a wave of Euro­pean success as Bernhard Langer, San­dy Lyle, Nick Faldo, Ian Woos­nam and Jose Maria Olazabal dominated the tournament until the Tiger Woods era began.

Player is delighted that two of his countrymen – Trevor Immelman and Charl Schwartzel – have since joined him in the ranks of Masters champions.