Top 239 Quotes & Sayings by Jack Nicklaus - Page 2

I love design in general, the creativity. Whether it is golf courses, my apparel line, ads we do or our business with AriZona, design is fun.

I might cook occasionally, but I'm not a good cook. That's not my passion.

Golf was my vehicle to competition, and I can't play if I can't compete.

If I were to look back on my work, I think I accomplished probably about 70 to 75 percent of what I could have. Maybe 60 percent. Somewhere in that area; two-thirds of what I could have accomplished. If I had been a really dedicated person, and really worked hard, I think I could have accomplished more.

I've wanted to design golf courses ever since I was a kid. I suppose it comes from the way I've played the game. To find the proper way to play any hole, I've always begun by asking myself what the architect has tried to do with it.

The long irons are the nemesis of the average golfer. I'm convinced that the underlying reason for this is that he keeps hearing how hard they are to handle. They're not that difficult, truly.

Did you know there's probably more golf played in Iceland than most places in the world? They play 24 hours a day in the summertime and the northern part is warmer than the southern part.

A Nicklaus Design golf course is done by the guys in my company that I work with, that have been trained in my vision, and they do what they think I might do. They might come in the office and ask me questions and I'd certainly answer their questions, but I'm not involved in the site visits or anything else.

Writers have told me more than once that I'm a better interview in defeat than in victory, which is a compliment I am extremely proud of.

A big part of managing a golf course is managing your swing on the course. A lot of guys can go out and hit a golf ball, but they have no idea how to manage what they do with the ball. I've won as many golf tournaments hitting the ball badly as I have hitting the ball well.

All I ever wanted to do was play competitive golf against the best players in the world.

I've never set up any golf course that would favor anybody. I try to make it exactly the opposite, which is what we did at Valhalla when we modernized it to accommodate the lengths players are hitting it today.

Naturally it is nice to be widely known for worthwhile achievements, but it forces you to do many things which you don't like to do and these things take up time you want for other things.

The way I pack is I look at how long I'll be gone and I pack day for day. If I'm going on a three-day fishing trip, I plot each day. I put most of that in a little bag. If I'm going from there to work on golf courses for a few days, I plot that trip.

I never worried about money, except that I knew that all I had to worry about was golf. As long as I could play, I was going to make money.

When I fly in a helicopter, I insist there be two sets of controls, one for me in case something happens to the pilot. I'm no expert, but I know enough to at least get the thing on the ground. Nothing scares me like the thought of not being in control.

Golfers have a tendency to be very masochistic. They like to punish themselves for some reason. A lot of them like tough courses.

The biggest rival I had in my career was me. I couldn't control Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Watson or Lee Trevino. The only person I could control was me.

Whether it's pool or Ping Pong, I can't stand to have my kids beat me. Especially Ping Pong! And when they beat me, they just needle the devil out of me. That's fine. I'd rather have that than let them win a shallow victory.

I have said many times that most people work all their life to retire to play golf, while I played golf all my life to retire to work. I enjoy working. It has kept me young and on the move, and I have had a good time with it.

I learned early in my career, where you get so wrapped up and so excited, that all of a sudden you don't think. So I worked very hard to keep myself suppressed. And that's one of the reasons I wasn't gregarious with the gallery.

I played competitive golf all my life. Then all of a sudden, when I quit playing the game, I've got all this spare time and this energy. And certainly I wasn't ready to pack up my bags and go sit in front of the television with a shawl on.

There is no room in your mind for negative thoughts. The busier you keep yourself with the particulars of shot assessment and execution, the less chance your mind has to dwell on the emotional. This is sheer intensity.

Tee your ball high...air offers less resistance than dirt.

Golf is not, and never has been, a fair game.

I'm more proud of the good rounds I've played while hitting the ball badly than of the great rounds while hitting the ball well. I understand my swing well enough to get myself through a tournament and win it. I've made it work.

I never missed a putt in my mind.

I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head.

Golf is you against yourself.

There is no room in your mind for negative thoughts.

It's great to win, but it's also great fun just to be in the thick of any truly well and hard fought contest against opponents you respect, whatever the outcome.

I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head. It's like a color movie. First I 'see' where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes and I 'see' the ball going there: its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behavior on landing. Then there is this sort of fadeout, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images to reality.

If there is one thing I have learned during my years as a professional, it is that the only thing constant about golf is its inconstancy.

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.

I don't believe in philosophies. I believe in fundamentals.

Pressure is what you live for...if you are going to be successful in life, you're going to have pressure.

It takes hundreds of good golf shots to gain confidence, but only one bad one to lose it.

Confidence is believing in your own ability, knowing what you have to do to win. My confidence was developed through preparation.

Pursue what you love, what you are passionate about. Don't let somebody else dictate your life's path.

The successful people seem to have blinders on. Everything is straight ahead. They go forward and know exactly what they're going to do once they've made up their mind to do it, and by God they don't look sideways.

Once you play a tournament, you're playing against the golf course, you're playing against yourself and trying to do the best you can.

If you want to hit it farther, hit it better.

We don’t have to do a bunch of things to figure out how to win the Ryder Cup. Just go play golf. ... I’m a little bit too casual probably about a lot of things, but you can’t force good play. Good play comes from good hard work and actually being prepared to play, not being forced to play.

I've had a lot of majors where I didn't play well until the last round. Keep yourself in contention; that's the name of the game. I usually ended up shooting a good round and all of a sudden, somehow, I won.

I came back and in '63, I was at the British Open, trying to win my first British Open. And I had what I thought was a two-shot lead with two holes to play at Lytham. I remember it like it was yesterday. Anybody with a proper brain would have played the ball short of the hole. I didn't have a proper brain at the time. But you have to make that mistake to learn it.

You have to love something and have a passion for it to be disciplined. My commitment was purely to golf

If there is one thing golf demands above all else, it is honesty.

Learn the fundamentals of the game and stick to them. Band-Aid remedies never last.

Donald Trump has been a good friend for a long time. I texted him after the election and I said 'congratulations, Mr. President. The Nicklauses are all happy for the Trumps,' and I said, 'It's time to bring American together, make American great again as you wish.'

Talent isn't as important as the work and dedication necessary to become competent.

The worse you're performing, the more you must work mentally and emotionally. The greatest and toughest art in golf is "playing badly well." All the true greats have been masters at it.

Ask yourself how many shots you would have saved if you always developed a strategy before you hit, always played within your capabilities, never lost you temper, and never got down on yourself.

Keeping the head still is golf's one universal, unarguable fundamental.

Pete Egoscue has totally changed my life. Never have I experienced such complete pain relief as I have by following the Egoscue Method.

Scoring comes from being able to preserve what you've got and play your smart shots when you need to play them and not do stupid things and take advantage of things when have you them.

Age doesn't make a difference either. Whether you're 20 or 70, you can still play together. There are so many different things you can do with golf that you can't do in other sports.

Nobody - but nobody - has ever become really proficient at golf without practice, without doing a lot of thinking and then hitting a lot of shots. It isn't so much a lack of talent; it's a lack of being able to repeat good shots consistently that frustrates most players. And the only answer to that is practice.

Achievement is largely the product of steadily raising one's level of aspiration and expectation.

I never went into a tournament or round of golf thinking I had to beat a certain player. I had to beat the golf course. If I prepared myself for a major, went in focused, and then beat the golf course, the rest took care of itself.

Complacency is a continuous struggle that we all have to fight.