Certainly, if you can't manage your game, you can't play tournament golf. You continually have to ask yourself what club to play, where to aim it, whether to accept a safe par or to try to go for a birdie. You can't play every hole the same way. I never could.
Hit the ball up to the hole... You meet a better class of people up there.
When you see an opportunity, you practice and work, at least from sunup to sundown.
If the Masters offered no money at all, I would be here trying just as hard.
The average golfer's problem is not so much the lack of ability as it is lack of knowledge about what he should be doing
Every day that you don't practice is one day longer before you achieve greatness
Golf is not a game of good shots. It's a game of bad shots.
Hitting a golf ball and putting have nothing in common. They're two different games. You work all your life to perfect a repeating swing that will get you to the greens, and then you have to try to do something that is totally unrelated. There shouldn't be any cups, just flag sticks. And then the man who hit the most fairways and greens and got closest to the pins would be the tournament winner.
I don't believe there is anything like a natural golf swing. A golf swing is an unnatural thing, and it has to be developed.
I hate a hook. It nauseates me. I could vomit when I see one. It's like a rattlesnake in your pocket.
Like most professional golfers, I have a tendency to remember my poor shots a shade more vividly than the good ones.
I never played a round when I didn't learn something new about the game.
Placing the ball in the right position for the next shot is eighty percent of winning golf.
You never fight your eye when you look at a hole. If it looks one way, play it that way. Don't make a big deal out of an easy shot.
I'm glad I brought this course, this monster, to its knees.
You only hit a straight ball by accident. The ball is going to move right or left every time you hit it, so you had better make it go one way or the other.
I play with friends, but we don't play friendly games.
The most important shot in golf is the next one.
Golf is 20 percent talent and 80 percent management.
This is a game of misses. The guy who misses the best is going to win.
If you can't outplay them, outwork them.
I have always felt and said that a man who can be a champion in one era could be a champion in any other era because he has what it takes to reach the top.
Why that would be like challenging Bing Crosby to a singing contest,wouldn't it
I dreamed one night that I had 17 holes-in-one and one two, and when I woke up I was so goddam mad.
You hear stories about me beating my brains out practicing, but the truth is, I was enjoying myself. I couldn't wait to get up in the morning so I could hit balls. I'd be at the practice tee at the crack of dawn, hit balls for a few hours, then take a break and get right back to it. And I still thoroughly enjoy it. When I'm hitting the ball where I want, hard and crisply - when anyone is - it's a joy that very few people experience.
May thy ball lie in green pastures, and not in still waters.
Shoot a lower score than everybody else.
The ultimate judge of your swing is the flight of the ball.
There is no similarity between golf and putting; they are two different games, one played in the air, and the other on the ground.
Relax? How can anybody relax and play golf? You have to grip the club, don't you?
If we could have just screwed another head on his shoulders, he would have been the greatest golfer who ever lived.
Every day you miss playing or practicing is one day longer it takes to be good.
The greatest pleasure is obtained by improving.
I could not wait for the sun to come up the next morning so that I could get out on the course again.
When I practiced, I practiced to get it right.
If a man can shoot 10 birdies, there's no reason why he can't shoot 18. Why can't you birdie every hole on the course?
Your name is the most important thing you own. Don't ever do anything to disgrace or cheapen it.
I have really enjoyed every minute I have spent in golf- above all, the many wonderful friends I have made. I have loved playing the game and practicing it. Whether my schedule for the following day called for a tournament round or merely a trip to the practice tee, the prospect that there was going to be golf in it made me feel privileged and extremely happy, and I couldn't wait for the sun to come up the next morning so that I could get out on the course again
All other things being equal, greens break to the west.
Golf was my life. I didn't want to give it up. So I went to work!
A shot that goes in the cup is pure luck, but a shot to within two feet of the flag is skill.
Jesus Christ can't hit a golf ball straight. It's virtually impossible - at best it's an accident.
Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.
Selecting a stroke is like selecting a wife. To each his own.
The only thing a golfer needs is more daylight.
Good golf begins with a good grip.
The truth is, the first golf club I owned was an old left-handed, wooden-shafted, rib-faced mashie that a fellow gave me, and that's the club I was weaned on. During the mornings we caddies would bang the ball up and down the practice field until the members arrived and it was time to go to work. So I did all that formative practice left-handed. But I'm a natural right-hander.
There's no set time or schedule for developing one's skills as a professional golfer, and it certainly doesn't come overnight. It's a muscle-memory exercise that comes over time.
You hear stories about me beating my brains out practising, but the truth is, I was enjoying myself. I couldn't wait to get up in the morning, so I could hit balls. When I'm hitting the ball where I want, hard and crisply, it's a joy that very few people experience.
Control is the main thing, and the tee shot is the most important shot in golf. You've got to hit the fairway before you have a good chance of putting the ball close to the pin. You can be the greatest iron player in the world, but if you're in the boondocks it won't do you any good.
There are no shortcuts in the quest for perfection.
I always outworked everybody. Work never bothered me as it bothers some people.
People have always been telling me what I can't do. I guess I have wanted to show them. That's been one of my driving forces all my life.
I liked to win, but more than anything, I loved to play the way I wanted to play
I play golf with friends sometimes, but there are never friendly games.
I don't like the glamour. I just like the game.
As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.
You wouldn't have had to call a penalty on me, I would've called I on myself'. 9. “I'm the sole judge of my standards”. 10. “I always outworked everybody. Work never bothered me like it bothers some people. You can outwork the best player in the world.
I see no reason that a golf course cannot be played in 18 birdies. Just because no one has ever done that doesn't mean it can't be done.
I have found the game to be, in all factualness, a universal language wherever I traveled at home or abroad.
