Jerry Barber

Jerry Barber was an American touring pro famous for being tiny by golf standards — 5 ft 5½ in and about 137 lb — and for compensating with relentless short-game practice. In 1961 he won the PGA Championship at 45, then the oldest player to take a major. He is the man Gary Player credits with the practice-and-luck retort in Gary Player’s Golf Secrets (1962), and a 1960 newspaper report catches Barber using a close cousin of it: “The harder you work the luckier you get.”