Did Gary Player say "The more I practice, the luckier I get"?

Q: Did Gary Player say "The more I practice, the luckier I get"?

No. Player is genuinely on record with a version of this line — but the wording he actually used was "The harder I practice, the luckier I get," quoted by Guy Yocom in Golf Digest (October 2002). Quote Investigator found the saying circulating long before that: the exact popular wording "the more I practice, the luckier I get" appears in a 1961 book, and Player's own 1962 book credits the line to fellow golfer Jerry Barber.

Who really said it

The more I practice, the luckier I get

Not coined by Gary Player — an older saying he made famous Gary Player b. 1 November 1935 · South African golfer, nine-time major champion

Player really did say a version of this — but he did not originate it, and the popular wording is not his. Rights unconfirmed

Player is genuinely on record with a version of this line — but the wording he actually used was “The harder I practice, the luckier I get,” quoted by Guy Yocom in Golf Digest (October 2002). Quote Investigator ↗ found the saying circulating long before that: the exact popular wording “the more I practice, the luckier I get” appears in a 1961 book, and Player’s own 1962 book credits the line to fellow golfer Jerry Barber.

Last verified 22 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed — copy with the correction

“The more I practice, the luckier I get” commonly credited to Gary Player, but not coined by him. Player's documented wording was "The harder I practice, the luckier I get" (Golf Digest, October 2002); the popular wording is documented as early as 1961, and Player's own 1962 book credited the saying to golfer Jerry Barber. Source: quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Gary Player. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the themes of work, success and growth. Theme: "The more I practice, the luckier I get". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

The paper trail

Popular attribution: Gary Player, South African golfer
Player’s documented wording: “The harder I practice, the luckier I get” — Golf Digest, October 2002
Earliest documented popular wording: The Devil to Pay (Coward-McCann, 1961)
Credited by Player himself: Jerry Barber, in Gary Player’s Golf Secrets (Prentice-Hall, 1962)

“That’s right. And the more I practice, the luckier I get.” Not a golf quote at first

The earliest instance of the popular wording located by Quote Investigator — a line of dialogue in Jack Youngblood and Robin Moore’s The Devil to Pay (1961), spoken after a marksman is told he was lucky. It has nothing to do with golf, and predates every Gary Player citation.

Quote Investigator: The Harder I Practice, the Luckier I Get

Chronology

1922 — Coleman Cox, Listen to This: “I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have,” per Wikiquote ↗.
1961 — the exact popular wording appears in The Devil to Pay by Jack Youngblood with Robin Moore, published by Coward-McCann (catalogue record ↗); identified as the earliest instance by Quote Investigator ↗.
1962 — in Gary Player’s Golf Secrets ↗ (Prentice-Hall), Player tells the bunker anecdote and gives the line to Jerry Barber, not to himself.
2002 — Guy Yocom quotes Player in Golf Digest saying “The harder I practice, the luckier I get”; Wikiquote ↗ carries that citation together with the caveat that he probably did not coin it.

No public-domain claim is possible here: the popular wording cannot be tied to any pre-1931 work. Its earliest documented appearance is a 1961 book, Player’s own retelling is in a 1962 book, and his quoted variant comes from a 2002 magazine article — all three texts are in copyright to their authors and publishers, while the underlying proverb has no identifiable author to hold rights in it.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

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Fact-check

How it landed on Gary Player

This is a proverb with a long tail, not a quotation with an author. At least four golfers and several businessmen have been credited with it, and the wording shifts between “practice,” “work” and “know” depending on who is telling it.

Gary Player Popularizer, not originator

Player is genuinely quoted saying “The harder I practice, the luckier I get” in Golf Digest, October 2002, and told an origin story about holing three bunker shots in a row in Texas. But Wikiquote’s own sourced entry ↗ appends the warning that the quote was probably not coined by him — and the “more I practice” wording usually put in his mouth is not the one he is documented using.

Jerry Barber Credited by Player himself

In Gary Player’s Golf Secrets (Prentice-Hall, 1962), Player tells a bunker-practice anecdote in which Barber — not Player — delivers the line. Quote Investigator ↗ quotes the passage.

Jack Youngblood, The Devil to Pay (1961) Earliest documented wording

Quote Investigator’s earliest located instance of the exact popular wording appears in this 1961 book, in a dialogue where a character says the shot was lucky and gets the reply “the more I practice, the luckier I get” — nothing to do with golf. See QI ↗.

Billy Casper 1966

Quote Investigator cites the Charleston Daily Mail in 1966 quoting Casper: “the more I practice, the luckier I get.” The saying was clearly common currency on tour by then. See QI ↗.

Coleman Cox, Listen to This (1922) Work, not practice

“I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have” — sourced on Wikiquote ↗, which also notes the shortened variant is sometimes mistakenly given to Thomas Jefferson, Stephen Leacock or Samuel Goldwyn.

Gary Player said a version of it and made it famous; he did not invent it. Quote Investigator ↗ concludes he “probably did not craft the aphorism,” which is documented in 1961 or earlier, with work-and-luck versions running back to 1949 and knowledge-and-luck versions to 1896.

Context

Why this one sticks to Player

Gary Player built his whole public persona on out-working everyone else — fitness regimes, endless bunker practice, a reputation for grinding. A one-line aphorism about practice manufacturing luck fits him so neatly that it migrated onto his name and stayed there, even though the saying was already in circulation when he was still winning his first majors.

The deeper problem is that this is a family of proverbs, not a single quotation. Quote Investigator tracks versions swapping “work” for “practice” and “know” for both, running back through the 1949 newspaper columns to the nineteenth century. Once a saying is that diffuse, whoever says it most memorably on television ends up owning it.

He said a version of it. He did not invent it — and the wording everyone quotes is not his.

Read the full story

The wording Player is actually documented using is “The harder I practice, the luckier I get,” quoted by Guy Yocom in Golf Digest, October 2002 — the citation Wikiquote ↗ uses, alongside its own warning that the line was probably not coined by him.

A close cousin of the saying is separately sourced to Coleman Cox in Listen to This (1922): “I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have” — a line Wikiquote notes is sometimes mistakenly pinned on Thomas Jefferson, Stephen Leacock or Samuel Goldwyn.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Work Success Growth

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: The Harder I Practice, the Luckier I Getquoteinvestigator.com

The definitive investigation: 1961 attestation of the popular wording, Player’s 1962 credit to Jerry Barber, Billy Casper in 1966, and older work/knowledge variants back to 1949 and 1896.

Gary Player — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced entry for “The harder I practice, the luckier I get” (Golf Digest, October 2002), with the explicit note that the quote was probably not coined by Player.

Luck — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Carries the related Coleman Cox line from Listen to This (1922) and flags its own crop of misattributions to Jefferson, Leacock and Goldwyn.

Gary Player’s Golf Secrets (1962)archive.org

Player’s first book, Prentice-Hall 1962 — the volume in which he tells the Jerry Barber bunker anecdote and credits Barber with the saying.

Gary Player — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Biography and career record; notably, the article does not attribute this saying to him at all.

The Devil to Pay (Coward-McCann, 1961)abebooks.com

Catalogue record confirming the publisher and 1961 date of the Youngblood & Moore book that carries the earliest documented instance of the popular wording.

The popularizer

About Gary Player

Gary Player

b. 1935 · South African golfer · nine major championships, career Grand Slam

Gary Player was born in Johannesburg on 1 November 1935 and became one of the most travelled and most decorated golfers in the game’s history, winning nine major championships and completing the career Grand Slam in 1965 — the first non-American to do so. Nicknamed the Black Knight, he built a public identity around fitness and relentless practice, which is exactly why a practice-and-luck aphorism stuck to his name so firmly. He did use a version of the line in print, but he was quoting a piece of golf-world folk wisdom, not minting it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Sources

Guy Yocom, “Gary Player: Take It from the Man in Black,” Golf Digest, October 2002 (for Player’s wording, “The harder I practice, the luckier I get”). Earliest documented instance of the popular wording: Jack Youngblood with Robin Moore, The Devil to Pay (New York: Coward-McCann, 1961), per Quote Investigator. Earlier credit by Player himself to Jerry Barber: Gary Player, Gary Player’s Golf Secrets (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1962).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The more I practice, the luckier I get’?” Last verified 22 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-more-i-practice-the-luckier-i-get/