Jack Nicklaus Quotes about Golf

Resolve never to quit, never to give up, no matter what the situation.

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.

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

Focus on remedies, not faults.

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.

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 golf demands above all else, it is honesty.

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

Don't be too proud to take lessons. I'm not.

A kid grows up a lot faster on the golf course. Golf teaches you how to behave.

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.

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

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.

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.

I never missed a putt in my mind.

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.

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

Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety.

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

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.

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

Golf is you against yourself.

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.

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.

Such is putting! 2% technique, 98% inspiration or confidence or touch...the only thing great putters have in common is touch and that is the critical ingredient...none of them found it through mechanizing a stroke, nor do I believe they could maintain it that way.