Golf challenges you mentally at any age, and when you become my age, it's a challenge physically to try to make your game work as well as it ever did. That's close to impossible, but that doesn't keep you from trying to hit the ball where you used to hit it and make the putts you used to make all the time.
The fun part of golf is the variety of shots. In football you can do anything with a ball, but you can do anything with a golf ball as well. When you hit a shot and the ball does exactly what you want it to do ... that's wonderful. It's just great when you hit the ball well. You should always try not to make the ball cry.
Physically I'm not as strong as I was, but I try to make up for it mentally. It's a big challenge, and I relish it, competing with guys half my age.
No one can ever see the ball hit the bat because it's physically impossible to focus your eyes that way. However, when I hit the ball especially hard, I could smell the leather start to burn as it struck the wooden bat.
When you make a mistake, the ocean gives you an instant reminder. You get punished. If golf clubs could shock you every time you hit the ball wrong, we'd probably learn how to play golf pretty well.
He knows all the golf lingo. You know? You hit your ball, he's like "there's a golf shot. That's a golf shot." Well of course it's a golf shot; I just hit a golf ball. You don't see Gretzky skating around going "there's a hockey shot, that's a hockey shot."
Golf is a stupid game. You tee up this little ball, really this tiny ball. Then you hit it, try to find it, hit it. And the goal is to get it into a little hole placed in a hard spot.
A golf ball is like a clock. Always hit it at 6 o'clock and make it go toward 12 o'clock. But make sure you're in the same time zone.
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.
There are certain things I can't do, certain pitches I can't hit. You stay away from them. You try to wait for pitches you can hit. The bat speed isn't what it used to be. You make up for it by using your head, working counts, getting ahead in counts and getting pitches to hit and hitting them hard.
I used to be a pretty good hit-and-run man when I played in the minors. I handled the bat well and could hit the ball to the right side of the infield. Nevertheless, I know that you often give the opposition an out on the hit-and-run play.
What is a hit? Who can tell? Who decides what a hit sounds like? I needed to remind myself that a hit is whatever people decide is a hit. I don't make hits; I make music. People make hits.
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.
You always measure success by what you did last. It's hard to measure that because it's something that just comes. If someone can just make a hit, they would do it everyday. But you can't make a hit that you know is a hit every day.
I used to be a mad hitter. And then I learned the longer you wait out the ball, the better you see it. And the better you see it, the harder you hit it. And the harder you hit it, the higher your average is going to be. And the higher your average is, the more money you're going to make.
When you're younger, you think of your age in fractions. 4 1/2, 5 1/2. You don't hear 36 1/2. You become 2, you turn 40, you reach 50, you make it to 60. By now you're going so fast you hit 70!
I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.