Top 186 Quotes & Sayings by Arnold Palmer - Page 2

I'm sorry that I haven't won the PGA Championship. That would be something that would have pleased me very much. I suppose when I look back, I have a lot of reasons and excuses for not having won the PGA.

I never heard Jack Nicklaus say, 'I'm a great player,' or Tiger Woods, as a matter of fact. They just get out and do it. And I think that's far more appealing... than talking about how good you are.

I've stated my position, and that is we do not need a contraption to play the game of golf. I would hope that we'd play under one set of rules, and those rules would include a ban on the long putter hooked to the body in some way, shape or form.

I am a sentimental guy, and occasionally, that lump in my throat when I speak has stopped my tongue from working.

I don't think that golf has a place for two sets of rules. I think one of the reasons that the game has progressed in the way that it has over the years is the fact that the amateurs and the pros all play the same game, and they play under the same set of rules.

Look at the better players of my era - Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Raymond Floyd. They had pros they worked with from time to time, but out on Tour, thousands of miles from home, each of them learned to be his own best coach. I think Tiger can do the same.

I can't be casual about losing. I always think I have a chance to win until winning is absolutely impossible.

Some players are wonderful hitters of the ball, but they can't figure out ways to get out of trouble. Eighty percent of the time, there is a way. You just have to know how to look for it.

I remember ones I lost [shot]. I remember the ones I won, but I remember the ones I lost, something that I will never forget. Did it ruin me or hurt my career? It taught me about life, how to take the bad with the good.

Golf never ceases to be a challenge, even when it really is just you and the ball out there and nobody else.

How did I make a twelve on a par five hole? It's simple - I missed a four foot putt for an eleven.

I received many years of good advice from my father - how to live, how to play, how to be a gentleman.

I would never felt good if I hadn't experienced losing, because losing is part of your life. And it something that if I could teach people to understand that I think it could help them a lot.

Swing your swing. Not some idea of a swing. Not a swing you saw on TV. Not that swing you wish you had. No, swing your swing. Capable of greatness. Prized only by you. Perfect in it's imperfection. Swing your swing. I know, I did.

Don't be ashamed to play safe.

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.

There's some good news, too, and the good news is that the players [finally] have become more aware of the fact that we [in golf] need sponsors, and we need the good will that is created by the players being, let's say, cooperative with the sponsors - meaning friendly.

Swing your swing. I know, I did.

I am against making golf courses obsolete, going to the national Open and playing half the holes with a one-iron.

If you can see it, you can hit it and if you can hit it, you can hole it.

I didn't get playing professional golf until I was 25 years old. And I always said that if I could make it work, I would play as long as I could walk.

All the things that I have derived either directly or indirectly through the game of golf are things I owe a great deal to the game and to the people who support the game.

If you're stupid enough to whiff, you should be smart enough to forget it.

I was playing golf in Palm Springs and after a round I asked the waitress in a restaurant to bring me a glass of iced tea and lemonade. A lady sitting nearby heard me and asked the waitress to bring her a "Palmer," too. The name caught on and the beverage quickly spread around the country.

Even before you step up to the ball, have a full battle plan for the hole worked out.

What separates great players from the good ones is not so much ability as brain power and emotional equilibrium.

On the Old Course at St. Andrews: This is the origin of the game, golf in its purest form, and it's still played that way on a course seemingly untouched by time. Every time I play here, it reminds me that this is still a game.

Timing is everything in life and in golf.

When you play by the rules, defy mental demons, overcome every challenge, and enjoy a walk in the country at the same time - that's being alive.

That's another thing about my father. He made me very conscious of the fact I wasn't very good and I had to prove to him that I was good. And that hung with me, and I always wanted to play golf with him and show him. He said Never, Never tell anyone how good you are. Show them!

It's a funny thing, the more I practice the luckier I get.

I think today's athletes generally are spoiled by what's happened to salaries, but I also think that golfers have maintained the best demeanor of any sport.

What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive: the white ball sailing up into the sky, reaching its apex, falling and finally dropping to the turf, just the way I planned it.

Golf is a game of inches. The most important are the six inches between your ears.

I've been wearing hearing aids for a long time. The technology available now is simply unbelievable. When I compare the new digital products to what we had 30 years ago, it's an amazing difference.... There was a time when I couldn't hear what most people said to me, most of the time. But with the hearing aids, I understand just about everything ... it really is very impressive.

From the beginning it was drilled into me that a golf course was a place where character fully reveals itself -- both its strengths and its flaws. As a result, I learned early not only to fix my ball marks but also to congratulate an opponent on a good shot, avoid walking ahead of a player preparing to shoot, remain perfectly still when someone else was playing, and a score of other small courtesies that revealed, in my father's mind, one's abiding respect for the game.

Trouble is bad to get into but fun to get out of. If you're in trouble, eighty percent of the time there's a way out. If you can see the ball, you can probably hit it; and if you can hit it, you can move it; and if you can move it, you might be able to knock it in the hole. At least it's fun to try.

Your worst putt will usually be as good as your best chip.

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.

I've noticed the sound of the golf ball being hit by the golf club is different, and much more realistic, with the hearing aids. The sound with the hearing aids makes sense, and better represents what I know is happening to the golf ball. So you could say that the hearing aids help give me confidence regarding my golf game.

Frankly, I'm not much for funerals unless it's absolutely an obligation. I don't feel it serves much of a purpose to go and see my friends just lying there, dead. I try to pay my respects to my friends when they're alive.

I had a system, and the system worked.

It is not a dreamlike state, but the somehow insulated state, that a great musician achieves in a great performance. He's aware of where he is and what he's doing, but his mind is on the playing of his instrument with an internal sense of rightness - it is not merely mechanical, it is not only spiritual; it is something of both, on a different plane and a more remote one.

Hit it hard, go find it and hit it hard again.

Establish a system you have confidence in and rely on it when you get into tough situations.

I look back, it taught me something - it taught me how to live, how to be a better guy, not let defeat be the end of my life.

I'm not much for sitting around and thinking about the past or talking about the past. What does that accomplish?

I think the guys are more conscious of the fact that being in good physical condition under the conditions that they play will make them better players.

I played with [Dwight Eisenhower] on the day after I won the Masters at his request. We became everlasting friends. I was with him the day before he died at Walter Reed.

I can sum it up like this: Thank God for the game of golf.

When I was growing up, they had just found radio.

I'm in love with golf, and I want everybody else to share my love affair.

The only really unplayable lie I can think of is when you're supposed to be playing golf and come home with lipstick on your collar.

Know how to win by following the rules

I would like to say, however, that a man might be walking around lucky and not know it unless he tries.

[Golf]is deceptively simple, endlessly complicated. A child can play it well, and a grown man can never master it. Any single round of it is full of unexpected triumphs and perfect shots that end in disaster. It is almost a science, yet it is a puzzle without an answer. It is gratifying and tantalizing, precise and unpredictable. It requires complete concentration and total relaxation. It satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time, rewarding and maddening. And it is without doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.

If you can concentrate on what you're doing and have the desire to do the things you have to do to win, you'll succeed.

The game is so fantastic, and people who get into it love it so much...I'd be pleased with that. There's no game like it.

I talk to golfers, I talk to my grand kids about their game, and tell them to develop a system, Now, when they're young. And if they develop that system, it will be the crutch they need to be good. To know that system and make it work for you, know what it is and make it work.

One thing I've learned over time is, if you hit a golf ball into water, it won't float.