Legendary professional golfer Gary Player is on Straight Talk this week.

As a 90-year-old retired professional golfer and ambassador of the sport, Gary shares his view on how Hong Kong can succeed with more golf being played in the city and tells us what he thinks about golf today in general.

Check out the full transcript of TVB’s Straight Talk host Dr Eugene Chan’s interview with Gary Player:

Chan: Good evening and welcome to Straight Talk. I'm Eugene Chan, coming to you today from the old course of the Fanling Golf Course, home to the Hong Kong Open, now in the 63rd year. We have the honor of welcoming a living legend in the world of golf, our guest this evening, who is one of golf’s most celebrated figures. He has a remarkable record of nine major championships, being one of five players in the world to win all of the four majors, the Masters tournament, the US Open, The Open Championship and the PGA Championships. He's had 24 PGA Tour wins and an astounding 165 international tournament victories. He's a man who has inspired generations of golfers, transcending the game itself with his philanthropy, wisdom and indomitable spirit. It is my absolute privilege to introduce the “Black Knight” himself, Gary Player, who joins us as the ambassador for The Link Hong Kong Open. Welcome, Gary!

Player: Thank you, Eugene. It's an absolute pleasure to be back in Hong Kong, which I just love so much. I love your law and order. I love your humility. The people are so friendly! And the first time I came here was 1956 …

Chan: Wow.

Player: … and this gets better and better every year.

Chan: So, when was the last time you were in Hong Kong? And what were you looking for when you came back?

Player: Well, when I come back here, it's usually to meet my friends and maybe do a corporate day of some kind, and but I would like to see if you could possibly achieve it, and we're well on our way to doing it, because we got great sponsors, as you know, to get some young guy to become a world champion. Can you imagine if China had a Tiger Woods? Your tourism would increase by 10 percent because there's so many millions of golfers, and golf is the fastest growing sport in the world. Businessmen don't play and come and invest here that play rugby and cricket and soccer. The people that come to this country as tourists play golf. And so I think that China should realize what it can do for this country, because every week we have young players from South Africa, for example, playing in a tournament somewhere in the world, there's no sport that can publicize China like golf.

Chan: Right, so maybe our Chief Executive, John Lee Ka-chiu, should listen to your little bit of advice.

Player: Well, that's not my advice to tell people what to do in their country, but if I was a leader of China, I would certainly promote the living daylights out of golf.

Chan: Right. So, Gary, you are the ambassador for The Link Hong Kong Open. What does the ambassador do, from your perspective?

Player: Well, this week, I've been here through the courtesy of the Club and also this link is very important to me. The only other golf course in the world that's had a tournament 60 years in a row is Augusta, and this has been here for 60 years. It's remarkable. And it gets better and better. And this beautiful golf course as you've got here in the middle of this big city, Hong Kong, where you do have a lot of pollution, unfortunately. You have all these beautiful trees, magnificent trees, and three golf courses. I just hope, and I pray that the government doesn't take the last nine holes and turn it into a housing development, because this golf course plays an ambassadorial role for Hong Kong. It's very important, rich people come and play here, spend money here, promote and invest in this country.

Chan: Right, so you've been here for quite some time, many times. Why do you think our Hong Kong Open is kind of significant in the global golfing calendar? What is the attractiveness here, as compared to all the golf courses you have been to?

Player: Well, this is something that people around the world, when they see the Hong Kong Open and the players that are playing and now to get to have Patrick Read, an American winning the tournament today, it boosts golf in this area, which we need. We need young people to play. Golf is play and stay. Every other sport is play and away. If you play soccer, you're lucky. If you play any other sport, if you play to 30, 34 it's a miracle. The NFL in America, if you play three years, you're doing well, and then when you finish, you've got a concussion and your knees and your shoulders and everything is broken. But golf, I'm nearly 90. I’m still shooting par, still breaking my age every day, still playing an ambassadorial role for the world, not for one place, for the world, to bring people together. That should be our great dream in the world today. We live in a world where every country is trying to outdo every other country. And this is what we got to adhere to, no wars, join together, have love and build a place in the sun for the people. That's what we need.

Chan: Somebody says, when your age progresses, you lose your distance. Do you agree with that?

Player: You lose distance?

Chan: Yes.

Player: On the golf course?

Chan: Yes.

Player: Man, you're not kidding. You lose distance. You lose everything. There's nothing that stays the same, except my mind is still sharp and my body's still sharp because I do 10 things every day to reach 100 right? And so I work on that. If you want to live a long time and be healthy, you've got to work on it. Unfortunately, the world doesn't care about it. It’s easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than to get the average day man or woman to look after their body, eat properly, sleep properly, and look after their body. Almost impossible. The world is now riddled with cancer and diabetes, and it's going to get worse.

Chan; Gary, you've been to many, many courses all over the world. You also played at Fanling. Would you say Fanling with its history is special in some way to you?

Player: Very special. I like Fanling because they still have a dress code, which is terribly important. You see, when you surrender ... when you surrender, which the West is doing, very quickly to all things, a very woke system, society, that is a bad thing. Now, the dress code here is important. The manners for the children are important. The dress code when you play golf, all these things in Fanling adhere to that. All the golf courses in Hong Kong adhere to that, and I like that very much. You see, golf is at the crossroads now, you got the LIV and you got the PGA tours, and they're fighting, which is not good. Anytime you have a confrontation in life, whether it is marriage, business or whatever, is no good. We've got to get them together. When a person wins a tournament today, Eugene. You take the winner of the tournament last week in Dubai. You can't say, I beat the best in the world. When you win a tournament today, you’re beating half the world. When we played, you beat the world. You had the best. And this is what the public wants to see. They want to see people all the best playing together, not the best in the LIV tour and the best on the regular team. So, we've got to get together.

Chan: Gary, every golfer will always remember the best shot that he has made. I've done one chip and run and got into the hole like from 20 yards away, right? Do you have any such moments?

Player: I was playing in the British Open, the Open in 1968, I was playing with Jack Nicklaus. I was one shot ahead of him, with five holes to go, and there were five guys within one shot of me. Now the par five, the 14th at Carnoustie, is known as the The Spectacles. The wind is blowing. I've got 230 yards into the wind. I take up my 3 Wood, and I'm only one ahead of Nicholas, and I hit it that far from null. Now I could hit 1,000 balls and never do it again. Why did that happen?

Chan: Tell us why?

Player: No.

Chan: Give us a tip.

Player: I think it's the man above.

Chan: Right, I see. So, always remember your good shots.

Player: Well, you must remember your good shots and be positive. But I think the world that is lacking, that I find, particularly in the west where I live, people are not grateful enough. Gratitude is an essential ingredient in your life. You know the meal I had for lunch today at this beautiful club, I turned around to the two people I was sitting with. I said you know the people in the world that they'll never have a meal like us one time in their life. So, when I sit down to a meal, whoever your God is, I'm a Christian. When I sit down to eat, I say, thank you. When I go to bed at night, I say, thank you. When I play on beautiful golf like this, or I have a plane trip, because I used to travel with my Greyhound Bus flights 40 hours to America, I've traveled more miles than any human being that's ever lived now.

Chan: I'm sure.

Player: Seventy-three years. So, my life is filled with gratitude, to meet here, all these wonderful people that I've met here, all these wonderful children that I'm seeing and what you're doing here, this tournament, is to be congratulated. You've got all these places here, beer gardens and places for children, special lessons. Winston Churchill, my all-time hero, said, the “youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity”, and this is what you're doing here. You're developing the youth and developing them with manners and good education and the right things that count in life.

Chan: Right, Gary. Let's take a short break now, but viewers, stay tuned. We will be right back.

Chan: Welcome back to Straight Talk. I am here with the legendary Gary Player, a true icon of the sport, and this year's ambassador for The Link Hong Kong Open. Before the break, we had multiple discussions on all the good things about Hong Kong and what we should do to keep this going because it is a very good tourist attraction. So, Gary, thank you for your little bit of advice. If we can use the sport, it will be a very sort of important for Hong Kong's economy, especially when we want people to come back. So, we have talked about the part of your career, let's move on to some future issues. You know, technology has been developing, and you see all these different viewfinders we have, all the clubs we have are getting better each day. Do you think technology is good for golf?

Player: Well, let me just come back to your original thought. You know, Nelson Mandela, our President in South Africa, who I spent three years basically working with to raise a lot of money for young black children, was one of the 10, and I met all world leaders, etc., but Nelson Mandela is in the top 10 I ever met. And he said sport, he was so clever, 27 years in jail, to think about, sport can change the world. And it is so true, I have seen this in my life as I have gone along. The great technology theory, for me, I am very perturbed about it. I don't think … and I have great admiration for our leaders, but I don't think they quite understand what is happening on the golf course. It is not golf anymore. Golf was originally designed, a Par-5, a Par-4, and a Par-3. There are no more Par-5s, it is gone, it is eliminated. Now the Par-4s will be next. The third hole at Augusta, Nicholas used to hit a drive and a wedge, and he is as long as anybody is today, but he played with junk, we played with rubbish. They today drive over the green. So, where are we going? Eventually, there is a man now in America, I saw him hit 5 drives the other day, averaged 475, and the next week he hit a drive 510 yards, so he could drive a Par-5. Where are we going? You see, when we started golf, nobody ever thought they'd be doing weight training. Now with the incentivization, and Lee Kuan Yew, one of my 10 heroes, said you got to incentivize people. And now these young guys in sports are saying golf, you play forever, you don't get smashed and your brains knocked, your legs and back broken, and there is an enormous amount of prize money, they are coming to golf. So, when you get a man like LeBron James play golf, he is going to hit the ball 500 yards, and in time to come, the whole tour will hit the ball 400 yards. And this is what our leaders are not seeing. When you stand on the first tee like I do and watch these young players, it is amazing. A skinny little guy is hitting the ball 350 yards. Where are we going? You can't make the golf courses any longer, there is not enough water, the machinery, the labor, it is just the costs are unbearable. So, we have got to cut the ball back, but two different sports, contrary to what our leaders believe. It is two different games, the amateur game and the pro game, they are as different as night and day. Leave the amateurs with everything they are doing. But professionals cut the ball back 60 yards to bring back the game to sanity. Otherwise, it is going to be abnormal.

Chan: Right. Thank you for that very interesting viewpoint. Earlier in the first part, you also mentioned about the LIV Golf, that is something who came to Hong Kong last year, it is going to come again this year. It is changing the whole landscape. Is that a good thing because there are more money coming in with more sponsorships, because we need that to help the young generation to be attracted to the sport in a way?

Player: Yes, you are quite right. You need sponsors, you can't … look, the amateur is the heart of the game, the professional is the most important. And sponsors are very important, and we need sponsors. You don't want to chase sponsors away. Get the two together, and bring the sponsor … I personally, because I have always been an international player because I love the game, and I want to go to … and I have a desire to learn and to travel and to see what is happening in the world, it is an education, it is better than even a university education. We should have a world tour, X amount of tournaments in America, X amount of tournaments in Europe, X amount of tournaments in Asia, and let the whole tour go there and play there. That is promoting the game. The managers of today, they are so greedy. They are doing golf a tremendous amount of harm. You want an ordinary player, an ordinary player to come and play in your country. They won $1.5 million, he is not worth it, he is not worth a $100,000. Now Tiger Woods is worth a lot of money, but you can't be greedy. They are playing for so much money, and the managers are hurting the game. They don't teach their athletes how to speak properly, how to dress properly, how to behave properly. If you are a manager, that means you are managing the young man. Now Mark McCormack, who started of IMG, he started all this managerial. He was never greedy with Arnold Palmer, Jack Nilsson, and myself. These guys are pricing themselves out of it, occasionally they accept it, but I tell you, it is very sad to see what is happening.

Chan: Right. So, Gary, I have read some of your background before I meet you today. You had what we call a humble beginning. And growing up in Johannesburg with your father working in the gold mines, and taking a loan to buy your first set of clubs. Your story is really a testament to resilience and determination. However, there is always this perception, especially in Asia, that golf is a sport for the elites. Yet your journey has proven that talent and hard work can transcend barriers. So, based on your experiences, what shall the golf world do to make it more accessible and more inclusive for golfers of different backgrounds?

Player: Well, first of all, when I was a young man, I suffered like a junkyard dog. But that was the greatest gift I ever had. I lay in bed for two years basically at the age of 10, and wishing I was dead crying in bed every night. That is the greatest gift I ever had. That is why I became a world champion. Now golf was an elite sport, was, no more. Golf is not an elite sport anymore, it is a sport for everybody. They have got public golf courses, look at all these children coming in today. It is a thing of the past being elite. We must get rid of that saying. And more people that play golf, the better. It is a sport forever, as I said, without being repetitive, play and stay. Every other sport is play and away, and other sports are seasonal, golf is all year round. So golf helps to make investments in countries, you have to be on time. I have only been late once in my life, two seconds, two seconds, I was penalized two shots. I said to the man, “How can you tell me I am two seconds late?” He went there and there was a watch on the wall, two seconds late, two shot penalty. Roberto de Vincenzo, he tied for The Masters tournament, he had a three on television, a billion people saw him get a three, okay? The scorer put down a four, the four stayed there. Now in a court case, if you have got one witness, it is good enough. But golf had a billion, and they still didn't change it. So, it shows you what a remarkable game is. It teaches you to have respect and that is important.

Chan: Since you mentioned about all the interesting things, I am going to ask you a very direct question.

Player: Anything you like.

Chan: In the recent Olympics, we had a Chinese female tennis player that has won a gold medal, for example, and our Hong Kong champions have won fencing, and even swimming. Do Asian golfers have any chance of reaching the top in world golf?

Player: Of course they do. Of course they do, if they are given competition. But I was very disappointed here this week. I spoke to five young guys and I asked them what sort of exercises they did. I would expect them to say they do 500 sit-ups a day and weight training. And they have seen Tiger Woods do all the weight training, they have seen McElroy do all the weights, McElroy does a deadlift of 400 pounds, they have seen DeChambeau, they have seen me, they have seen all the champions do training, and they tell me they don't train. They have got no chance of being a world champion, no chance. Today you have got to prepare yourself, you have got to do everything. You have got to sleep well, you have got to eat well, you have got to have good manners, you have got to dress properly, you have got to work hard, you have got to have gratitude. It is an accumulation of things, just not the swing, the swing is not the thing. This is the thing, how this works. Of all the superstars, to be a superstar, you have got to win 6 majors. Only 15 players have ever done it. Every one of those I met had a different mind, complete, and they were all phenomenal putters. Don't tell me how far you are hitting the ball, yes that is an asset, but it is not a necessity. But this is a necessity. And putting is an absolute necessity.

Chan: So, thank you, Gary, for giving us those tips that be concentrated and the mind is the most important thing. We have been talking about golf, all the good things, anything bad come from golf at all?

Player: Well, the bad thing that is happening in golf right now is the technology. It is just not for the average guy, for the average guy it is wonderful, and that they are the heart of the game. But I will come back to say we have got to do something about this ball and the clubs, it is just going to be the ruination of golf in my opinion. It is only my opinion and I have respect for people's opinions, but I’d like to see a golf course with a Par-72. Every time a pro plays today, It's not a par 72 anymore, it is a Par-68. Everything has changed. The ball goes 50 yards, the metal heads, the people are traveling around in their jets, which is wonderful, I mean, that is fantastic, they are making money which is fantastic. They are not promoting world golf, however, unless they paid a fortune of money. So, don't tell me you are promoting world golf because you are not, you are promoting your pockets.

Chan: Right.

Player: But, no, I am very, very seriously thinking what is going to happen to golf when they drive the Par-4s and there are no more Par-5s, it is just the ruination of the game. And our leaders have to, don't cut the ball back 15 yards, it is like giving your donkey a strawberry. You know, you have got to cut the ball back for the pros, 60 yards. If you go to Augusta, they have got to work it out, that the players of our time and the players of this time hit the same clubs to the hole.

Chan: Right.

Player: But it is one-sided now, these players they just “boom”, they get to drive the first hole of Augusta. There are many players in the world that can drive it right now, drive the first green, think about it, where are we going?

Chan: Right. Gary, I am going to ask you the last half’s last question. I am sure we all want to play better at golf, and usually the way is we got our friends to tell us what to do, sometimes we take a video shot of ourselves, what do you suggest us to do? YouTube or actually get proper lessons?

Player: Well, the first thing you should do, I would recommend to everyone because there is a great lack of knowledge, the teaching in golf today is probably the worst I've ever seen. They are teaching this, what they call, “shut face, bowed wrist” in golf, which is poison. That went out in 1957. Now Dustin Johnson did that, and there are a few other players that do it, they get away with it because they practice all the time, but that is poison. So, the lack of knowledge, the most brilliant mind ever was Ben Hogan. Brilliant, more brilliant than anybody that ever lived. He hit the ball the best, he had the best swing. Teaching today is a very unusual thing, you find people that really couldn't play, they have never been able to play, but they are teaching pros, how are they going to do it? How are you going to teach a young man to play golf if you have never been in the arena? I have great respect for the teachers for their amateurs and their members, but to find a good teacher as a pro, very, very difficult. But let me say one thing, if young people would realize, and everybody that play golf, the most important thing that will help their golf enormously, from the top of their backswing, they have got to rotate their body, see? Rotate the body, don't hit the ball with your hands. Bobby Jones, maybe the best player that ever lived, he played with a walking stick and a ball that went 80 yards less, and they put the pins in the same place every day, and you raked the bunkers with your feet, and they never had mowers for the fairway. He said to me at the dinner one year at Augusta, “Gary, remember golf is a left-sided game with the right hand being the perpetrator.” So, don't hit the ball with your hands, learn to hit with the strongest part of your body, which is your core. Baseball, boxing, karate, a quarterback, everything is the core, not the hands. The hands are the weakest part of your body. Hit the ball with the strongest part of your body, which is your core.

Chan: Thank you so much, Gary, for sharing with us all these golf tips. And Gary's incredible achievements on the course and his passion for golf are truly remarkable. His legacy continues to inspire golfers of all ages. And as Gary Player himself says, “The harder I practice, the luckier I get.”

Thank you for joining us and see you next week!