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The story behind Gary Player’s claim Tom Watson shouldn’t have kept his 1977 majors

Originally posted on HITC | By Antony Martin | Last updated Oct 7, 2025 3:13 PM ET

Gary Player and Tom Watson have both left a lasting mark on golf, each building careers full of major victories and notable moments.

Over the years, though, their relationship has not always been smooth.

The South African golfer achieved 159 professional victories globally, featuring 24 PGA Tour titles and nine major championships.

Watson is also no stranger to success. The American won 70 times around the world, including eight majors and 39 PGA Tour titles.

Despite being over a decade apart in age, their careers overlapped enough for them to share some memorable encounters on the course.

The two men respected each other’s achievements, but that did not stop them from having several disagreements along the way.

One of those early clashes came nearly half a century ago and stood out for how heated it became.

Gary Player once claimed Tom Watson should lose his Masters and Open titles

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Watson claimed both The Masters and The Open Championship at Turnberry in 1977. At that point, they were just the second and third major wins of his career.

Watson was only 28 then, while the South African was nearing the end of his playing days at 41.

Player added one more major after that year, while the Missouri native went on to win five more.

But there was a point where Player felt Watson should not have been credited with all those titles, as he stated in a book released in 1991, called “To Be The Best”.

In it, the South African argued that Watson should give back the Masters and Open trophies from 1977 because his clubs did not meet U.S. Golf Association groove specifications, according to The Tampa Bay Times.

Player wrote: “I would hate to have won major championships knowing I had used illegally grooved clubs.”

PGA of America officials had ruled before the PGA Championship in 1977 that Watson’s irons exceeded the allowed groove width of 35/1000ths of an inch.

“I had no idea,” he said at the time. “I wasn’t trying to cheat anybody. It won’t make any difference to me.”

Tom Watson’s reply to Gary Player’s comments

Photo by Ken Murray/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Just as Player’s new book was hitting the shelves in 1991, Watson addressed the situation with reporters ahead of The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.

Asked for his thoughts on Player’s call to return the 1977 Masters and Open trophies, following rulings that his wedges had been illegal, Watson did not offer much.

His reply was brief: “I don’t want to talk about it. This is the Open Championship. This is not the time nor the place to get involved in a debate that would detract from the Open championship.”

The important detail here is that Watson was not trying to break any rules by using Ram clubs during his 1977 wins. Once they were ruled out, he stopped using them straight away.

It was not just him, either. Player had used them too, as did Raymond Floyd.

With how clubs wore down back then, it would not be surprising if more majors than we realise were won with equipment slightly out of spec without players knowing.

This article first appeared on HITC and was syndicated with permission.

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