Golf Mastery Quotes

If ever I needed an eight foot putt, and everything I owned depended on it, I would want Arnold Palmer to putt for me.

It's hard not to play golf that's up to Jack Nicklaus standards when you are Jack Nicklaus.

The game of golf was bigger than Jack Nicklaus when Jack was dominating the game.

Golf is deceptively simple, endlessly complicated. A child can play it well and a grown man can never master it. It is almost a science, yet it is a puzzle with no answer.

Even if you shoot 60, now you're aiming for 59. Golf is something you can never master.

You can't take up golf on a whim and find yourself competing against Tiger Woods in the Masters six months later.

For a competitive junkie like me, golf is a great solution because it smacks you in the face every time you think you have accomplished something. That to me has taken over a lot of the energy and competitiveness for basketball.

You can be a guy who won 18 majors, but that doesn't mean you'll be a great Ryder Cupper. That's the rarest golf there is.

Golf can be tougher than tennis when things go wrong, because you can't explain things by saying that your opponent played better than you. It's a cruel sport in that way.

The whole secret to mastering the game of golf - and this applies to the beginner as well as the pro - is to cultivate a mental approach to the game that will enable you to shrug off the bad days, keep patient and know in your heart that sooner or later you will be back on top.

When I'm swinging well, nobody hits the golf ball any better than I do.

I watch golf, just looking at the pros, and I'm in awe of how they play. Not one particular player - maybe all the players.

You go out on the practice range, and something kind of clicks, and you start hitting the ball very crisply. And you're sure that you've found it, the holy grail - that all you have to do is hold your hand in a certain way. Then you go out on the golf course, and it's completely disappeared.

It takes six years to make a golfer: three to learn the game, then another three to unlearn all you have learned in the first three years. You might be a golfer when you arrive at that stage, but more likely you are just starting.

[Jack Nicklaus] was the first to bring in course management. He could go to a course and tell you within one stroke what was going to win. He used to set his sights on that because he could shoot it. He was the only player I know who, if he decided he wanted to win a tournament, could go out and do it. No one will ever be as popular as Arnold Palmer and no one will ever come close to Jack as a player.

I couldn't tell you exactly what I like about golf. Just when you think you've got it mastered it lets you know you haven't. I'm just crazy enough to do it.

There are no shortcuts to good golf. The better players realize this.

If a guy is a good athlete, he'll end up being a pretty decent golfer if he just takes it up. But you never master it; even the best players in the world never master the game.

Jones is the greatest golfer who ever lived and probably ever will live. That's my goal. Bobby Jones. It's the only goal.

I didn't get into this to pick up a new hobby. I don't want to just be a golfer. I want to be the best.

I want to try to become the best golfer in the world.

If I can figure out this wedge stuff and become a really good wedger, I'll be the number-one player in the world.

Few learn golf in a lifetime.

There is no truth in the idea that the person who hits the most balls will become the best golfer. Golf is a bizarre sport. You can work for years on your game, without making any improvement in your score.

My boring, mundane, diligent kind of golf works sometimes. Actually, it works all the time. And sometimes, on the greatest stages, it really does flourish.