Gary Player learned Aronimink course en route to 1962 PGA win

A few months before the 1962 PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club, the tournament's director had bragged in a letter to Sports Illustrated that this would be the most modern golfing event ever.

Forty-eight years later, history has proved Jack Macinnes correct, though in a very different way than the late Bryn Mawr resident envisioned.

As his old course in Newtown Square prepares this week to host its first PGA Tour event since then - the AT&T Classic - the lessons learned at Aronimink in July of 1962 continue to resonate.

But the reason that PGA would become a template for the sport had little to do with the 7,500 bleacher seats Macinnes had cited proudly, or the TV monitors for spectators, or the 40 acres of parking - though all those things would soon become standard PGA Tour features.

It was instead the example set by the tournament's champion.

Gary Player, the 26-year-old South African who would ensure his second major with a spectacular recovery shot on Sunday's 18th hole, showed that by getting to an event early, by practicing tirelessly, and by keeping your body fit and strong, a golfer - even a 5-foot-9 golfer like himself - could gain a significant edge.

In time, in large part because of Player's continued success, the average golfer's physique would morph from Billy Casper-like flab into the gym-toned muscle of Woods and most of his 21st-century contemporaries.

But in 1962, Player was an anomaly.

By contrast, on the day he arrived at Aronimink, a still-hefty "Fat Jack" Nicklaus ate three breakfasts. A weary Arnold Palmer, who had flown here directly from Scotland, chain-smoked. And while most of the PGA's 169 competitors didn't bother to show until Wednesday's pro-am, Player came several days before, practiced slavishly in the summer heat, and performed his rigorous daily exercise routine.

After he lifted the Wanamaker Cup at tournament's end - his 278 total 2 shots better than Bob Goalby's - Player toasted his good fortune with a big glass of milk, a sight that must have made some of the Tour's crusty, hard-drinking pros wince.

Actually, that week at least, it was his own misfortune that caused Player to arrive at Aronimink prematurely. The previous Wednesday, he had missed the cut in the British Open, an event that, like April's Masters, had been won by Palmer, then at the height of his popularity and power.

"I had left the British Open at Troon with my tail between my legs," Player recalled in a 2002 interview. "But when you drive into [Aronimink], there's a magnificent stately clubhouse that really makes you tickled to be there."

Player had flown back to the U.S. with his family/entourage - wife, mother-in-law, and three children - and phoned Aronimink's pro, Joe Capello.

"I'd like to play a practice round tomorrow, Mr. Capello," the always polite Player said. "Would you do me the honor of being my playing partner?" In the days leading up to the July 19-22 event, Player rarely left the grounds in Newtown Square. (In an embarrassment for organizers, the promotional cars lent by local dealers carried logos identifying the Delaware County town as "Newton Square.") Two days before the PGA began, Inquirer writer Bob Fachet noted prophetically that "Player, who hasn't won a tournament since the 1961 Masters, is going all out for this one." He would arrive so early the holes weren't yet punched in the practice green. So he would use an empty milk bottle as a target. Player played at least 18 holes a day leading up to the tournament, then headed to the range, where he would work until dusk.

The course that Player, Palmer, Nicklaus and the others found was one designed by the renowned Donald Ross. In that era of persimmon woods and big-dimpled golf balls, it was a relatively long test at 7,045 yards. Its 610-yard ninth hole, which no one would reach in two that week, was a popular topic of conversation.

Aronimink was then 62 years old, but already occupying its fourth location. At first a nine-hole layout at 52d and Chester in Southwest Philadelphia, the club had incorporated in 1900. Urban growth soon pushed it a few miles away, then farther out to suburban Drexel Hill, on the site of what is now the Drexelbrook apartment complex.

In 1926, it's western migration continued when it moved to Newtown Square, on a 300-acre chunk of property not far east from the sprawling estate of John DuPont.

Golf in 1962 was still dominated by an Eastern country-club elite and though Manoa's Llanerch Country Club had hosted the 1958 PGA, Aronimink, less than 10 miles away, was picked as the site of the '62 tournament.

It began when North Carolina pro Joe Cheves teed off at 7:14 a.m. Thursday, not longer after the U.S. Senate, in an all-night session, had, by a 52-48 vote, rejected President Kennedy's proposal to create Medicare.

Having won the previous two Masters, the 1960 Open, and, most recently, the British Open, Palmer was the big favorite with gamblers (2-1 odds) and fans. "Arnie's Army," a relatively new term that referenced the throngs drawn to the swashbuckling Pennsylvanian, was in evidence from the start.

On Thursday, a PGA first-day-record 17,000 fans showed up, most of them following Palmer, who was paired with Nicklaus and Dave Marr in an attractive 8:40 group.

While Palmer and, to a lesser extent, Nicklaus often strayed into the trees with their drivers, Player fared better by using a new 4-wood off most tees. The knowledge of the greens he'd picked up that week helped enormously - along with a $50 putter he'd purchased in Japan.

Big-hitting John Barnum led after the first round with a 66. After Day 2, veteran Doug Ford's pair of 69s had him on top. Rain on Friday softened the parched course enough that Bobby Nichols barely missed shooting a 29 on the front.

That Saturday, as local newspapers reported an Eagles executive had threatened to move the NFL team unless the city relaxed its lease demands on the new stadium being contemplated for South Philadelphia, Player shot a 69 to assume the lead, a position he didn't particularly like.

"I never seem to play well when I'm ahead," he told sportswriters.

The South African, one of the very few foreigners on what was still an all-white PGA Tour, said golf fans in his native country wouldn't even know that he was on the verge of winning a major since there were no Sunday newspapers.

Player's roots would later test his resolve. As perhaps South Africa's most visible international face, the golfer would become the target of anti-apartheid protesters. At the U.S. Open at Merion in 1971, he received death threats.

"I had been brainwashed as a child in South Africa into believing that apartheid was 'separate but equal,' " he said in 1993, "but then as a young pro, as I began to travel the world, I began to realize that things were not equal. At that point, I stopped supporting apartheid.

"But it is impossible for one man to change a country's policy overnight. Most of the world did not support America's involvement in the Vietnam War, but no protesters anywhere ever took Jack Nicklaus or Arnold Palmer to task and asked them to answer for their country's actions."

After a third-round 73, Palmer fell out of contention, and the Sunday crowds fell, too, from 18,000 on Saturday to 14,500.

Player led Goalby by 7 shots after six holes of the final round. But Goalby got hot and when Player three-putted both seven and eight for bogeys, the outcome was in doubt.

After Goalby birdied 14 and 16, Player's lead was down to 1. That seemed about to vanish when he put his drive on 18 into the trees. A day earlier he had done the same, only to muscle a 2-iron onto the green - "The greatest iron shot of my life," he would say.

This time he took out a 3-wood.

"Obviously, you're uptight when you know that you have the possibility of winning a major championship," said Player. "Bob Goalby was a wonderful competitor, and I knew I had to play very, very well. The shot I hit at the last hole I will never forget. I took a 3-wood and I aimed it 100 yards left of the green and hit the biggest slice around the corner and onto the green."

When he three-putted from 70 feet, he had a 1-stroke victory. Only he and Goalby had finished under par.

The winner earned $13,000 from the total purse of $69,400, plus a $5,000 bonus from the club manufacturer, First Flight, he represented.

As for the rest of what would soon be called golf's "Big Three," Nicklaus tied for third at 281 while Palmer was 17th at 288.

While Palmer and Nicklaus retreated to Ohio for an exhibition match Monday in Columbus and a week off, Team Player flew to Montreal for the Canadian Open.

"I found Aronimink was a great club, and it set up perfect for me," Player, still as fit as ever, recalled four decades later.

This Sunday, 48 years later, the winner is likely to say the same.