They say: If someone shows you who they are the first time, believe them.
So I was disgusted and disappointed by Gary Player. And I’m using mooi woorde because I can’t just curse his mother’s womb.
I reckon some of you were wondering what the big fuss about the 85-year-old getting the US Congressional Medal of Freedom last week was.
Well, saying that it was kind of a big deal is a really gross understatement.
And in the above sentence, “gross” is the operative word.
I know people of a certain age will remember that Gary Player is a golf legend.
Back in the day, he won nine majors between 1959 and 1978 - becoming one of only five players to complete a personal grandslam by claiming the British and US Open as well the US Masters and PGA Championship.
His exploits brought a lot attention to Apartheid South Africa, but here it gets ugly.
Player was not only an apologist for the evil regime, he loved it. And he was proud to say that he was.
If you can get hold of his 1966 book Grand Slam Golf, you will find this passage: "I must say now, and clearly, that I am of the South Africa of [Hendrik] Verwoerd and apartheid.
“A nation which is the result of an African graft on European stock and which is the product of its instinct to maintain civilised values and standards among the alien barbarians
“The African may well believe in witchcraft and primitive magic, practise ritual murder and polygamy; his wealth is in cattle."
These words are enough to get mense kwaad, but it’s proof that Player was wholeheartedly behind the movement.
He could even be counted on to seal business deals for the Apartheid government when they were under pressure from the international community’s growing calls to end the unjust oppression of people that look like you and me.
Yes, Gary Player was the poster boy for the regime - his status as a world-class sportsman used to prop up ideals of white supremacy.
All the time this was going on, the likes of Basil D’Oliviera were good enough to play for England, but not for the country of his birth because he wasn’t white.
And there were countless more of the likes of D’Oliviera, who were overlooked in rugby, soccer, cricket, you name it.
By 1987, he had changed his tune when the tide was turning as SA’s bloody resistance was laid bare to the world through TV broadcasting.
It wasn’t working for him so he disavowed the regime that had made him millions, saying: “We have a terrible system in apartheid...it's almost a cancerous disease. I'm happy to say it's being eliminated....we've got to get rid of this apartheid.”
Later in an interview with Graham Bensinger, Player put his support of the oppressive regime down to wool being pulled over his eyes and people being "brainwashed".
So what excuse does he have now after meeting with US President Donald Trump the day after the former host of The Apprentice had incited an attempted coup on the US Capitol?
I don’t want to get into US politics right now, but all we need to know is that Trump has been lying about the legitimacy of last November’s presidential election.
Courts have thrown out over 60 frivolous cases to overturn the results in favour of Joe Biden and his own government agencies say there is no proof of voter fraud.
The bottomline is that Trump whipped up his supporters - including white supremecists - with lies and triggered a deadly but failed attempt to overthrow a duly-elected government.
Those people had had “the wool pulled over their eye” and were “brainwashed”.
And there was Gary Player, a US resident, acting like nothing had happened again, brainwashed and with the wool over his eyes.
Obviously, one could find some way to justify Player being there - as a sportsman, he is deserving of the highest accolades.
But, morally, how? After his own experiences in South Africa?
Even his own son, Marc, pleaded with him on social media not to meet with Trump, saying that his dad’s decision was “tone deaf”.
No, there is no justification.
I’d like to remind you that if a person shows you who they are the first time, believe them.
Social justice movements like BLM, sparked in America last year, have been criticised by Trump as violent mobs, while characterising his own supporters as “patriots”.
And Player once again is not standing up for the oppressed. He will not be forgiven the second time.