St. Andrews by far is my favorite golf course in the world. It's where the game all started, it's why we have 18 holes instead of 22 and I think the history behind St. Andrews is amazing. There is no other golf course in the world that can say that every great player who has ever played the game has played that golf course.
St. Andrews is the Home of Golf and the greatest course in the world. Any time you can win at St. Andrews would be special. It's every golfer's dream to win out here.
There are a lot of great players from Europe who have never played Augusta, but all the guys in America have all played St. Andrews. They've gone over and made a trip to play St. Andrews.
St. Andrews provided a gentle forgetfulness over the preceding painful years of my life. It remains a haunting and lovely time to me, a marrow experience. For one who during her undergraduate years was trying to escape an inexplicable weariness and despair, St. Andrews was an amulet against all manner of longing and loss, a year of gravely held but joyous remembrances.
When one thinks of golf and Scotland, the first thing that comes to mind is usually St. Andrews, especially the famed Old Course.
There's more to be learned here [St. Andrews] about course design than anywhere. Collection bunkers, false fronts, bump shots. The fundamentals of design became fundamental because of what's here. And it happened accidentally. Or maybe accidentally on purpose.
If St. Andrews is the home of golf, I think Pebble Beach feels like the home of American golf, like the home of championship golf. It has a real sense of history here.
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.
If I had ever been set down in any one place and told I was to play there, and nowhere else, for the rest of my life, I should have chosen the Old Course at St. Andrews.
When the British Open is in Scotland, there's something special about it. And when it's at St. Andrews, it's even greater.
To win at Augusta and to win The Open Championship at St. Andrews, it's hard to put it into words as a golfer, as an athlete, as a guy - I'm not rich in history, I can tell you that. I'm not a great historian.
Do I want to be in St. Louis forever? Of course. People from other teams want to play in St. Louis, and they're jealous that we're in St. Louis because the fans are unbelievable. So why would you want to leave a place like St. Louis to go somewhere else and make $3 million or $4 more million a year? It's not about the money.
Until you play it, St. Andrews looks like the sort of real estate you couldn't give away.
I think that (Alister) MacKenzie and I managed to work as a completely sympathetic team. Of course there was never any question that he was the architect and I was the advisor and consultant. No man learns to design a golf course simply by playing golf, no matter how well. But it happened that both of us were extravagant admirers of the Old Course at St Andrews and we both desired as much as possible to simulate seaside conditions insofar as the differences in turf and terrain would allow.
I've always felt like I was going to win a British Open at St. Andrews. That place is suited for me.
Of course, money matters to everyone even if some don't want to admit it. If I won the Race to Dubai, I look at that prize money and think it could pay off my new house or the range I'm building. I am privileged to play golf for a living - look around St Andrews, that's my office.