{"id":9601,"date":"2012-04-04T03:48:47","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T01:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/04\/golf-player-ready-for-nervy-debut-as-honorary-masters-starter\/"},"modified":"2012-04-04T03:48:47","modified_gmt":"2012-04-04T01:48:47","slug":"golf-player-ready-for-nervy-debut-as-honorary-masters-starter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/golf-player-ready-for-nervy-debut-as-honorary-masters-starter\/","title":{"rendered":"Golf-Player ready for nervy debut as honorary Masters starter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

By Mark Lamport-Stokes<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

AUGUSTA, Georgia, April 3<\/span> (Reuters) – Gary Player has
\nexperienced virtually everything golf has to offer during his
\nillustrious career but he expects to feel a flutter of nerves on
\nhis debut as an honorary starter at this week’s Masters.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

On Thursday morning, the 76-year-old South African will join
\nsix-times champion Jack Nicklaus and four-times winner Arnold
\nPalmer to hit the ceremonial opening shots off the first tee at
\nAugusta National.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“I’ll be nervous but I’m already trying to control myself,”
\nfitness fanatic Player told reporters after working out in a
\nnearby gym on Tuesday. “That’s why I won a lot of tournaments,
\nbecause coming down the line, I was able to control my nerves.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“I think genetics are an important thing in that. I was
\nlucky to have the right genes, and I was lucky to be able to
\ncontrol my nerves.”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Player, a nine-times major winner who enjoyed a long rivalry
\nwith Palmer and Nicklaus and an even longer friendship, briefly
\nhesitated before trying to explain exactly how he would feel on
\nthe first tee.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“I don’t know what the word is … are you going to be
\npumped up? Are you going to be nervous? Are you going to be
\nthere with enjoyment? I think it’s an accumulation of
\neverything,” he said.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“Obviously you have to feel a little bit nervous. It’s on
\ntelevision and people are watching, and you want to hit the best
\ndrive of the three, so you have to be a little bit nervous.”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Player laughed when asked if it was important to hit the
\nlongest drive of the three while launching the 76th edition of
\nthe Masters, the year’s opening major.
\n\u00a0 Continued…<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mark Lamport-Stokes AUGUSTA, Georgia, April 3 (Reuters) – Gary Player has experienced virtually everything golf has to offer during his illustrious career but he expects to feel a flutter of nerves on his debut as an honorary starter at this week’s Masters. On Thursday morning, the 76-year-old South African will join six-times champion Jack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-9601","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}