A Matchless Player At Match Play

Gary Player's performance, meanwhile, was even more exceptional when you take into account the two operations he underwent in February—a tricky one to repair his bladder and another to remove a cyst from his leg. Through the summer his weakened game had him depressed. "It was like trying to swing the club with a brick on it," he said.

But when he arrived at Wentworth he announced that he was a new man. "All of a sudden it dawned on me the proper way to take the club back," he glowed. "I now have an anti-hook golf swing and I expect to win more tournaments during the rest of my career than I have to this point." As evidence, Gary noted that he broke 70 in 12 of his last 14 rounds on the PGA tour, a string that included a win in the Southern Open.

So at the Piccadilly, close by a queen's castle and a rock singer's home, it all came back to him, all of the old skills and mental discipline, and under cold and darkening skies along the Burma Road everything looked bright as new.