The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done.
[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.
It's a funny thing, the more I practice the luckier I get.
Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening - and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.
Hit it hard, go find it and hit it hard again.
I have a tip that can take 5 strokes off anyone's golf game. It's called an eraser.
Concentration comes out of a combination of confidence and hunger.
Timing is everything in life and in golf.
If you can see it, you can hit it and if you can hit it, you can hole it.
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!
I can sum it up like this: Thank God for the game of golf.
Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated.
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.
Golf is a game of inches. The most important are the six inches between your ears.
If you're stupid enough to whiff, you should be smart enough to forget it.
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.
Putting is like wisdom - partly a natural gift and partly the accumulation of experience.
What separates great players from the good ones is not so much ability as brain power and emotional equilibrium.
Golf never ceases to be a challenge, even when it really is just you and the ball out there and nobody else.
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.
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.
How did I make a twelve on a par five hole? It's simple - I missed a four foot putt for an eleven.
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.
I never rooted against an opponent, but I never rooted for him either.
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.
