Arnold Palmer Quotes

I played high school golf, I played amateur golf and I started getting officers. I was playing pretty good, won amateur tournaments as a junior, and the whole thing.

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.

I talk to golfers, I talk to my grand kids about their game, and tell them to develop a system, Now, when they're young. And if they develop that system, it will be the crutch they need to be good. To know that system and make it work for you, know what it is and make it work.

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!

Frankly, I'm not much for funerals unless it's absolutely an obligation. I don't feel it serves much of a purpose to go and see my friends just lying there, dead. I try to pay my respects to my friends when they're alive.

I wanted to emulate my father. I wanted to be as tough as he was. I wanted to do the things that he did. I watched him.

What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive.

You can describe my round as having moments of ecstasy and stark raving terror. I looked like I knew what I was doing at times and at other times I looked like a twenty handicap player.

I stopped playing in the Masters in 2004, I stopped playing in the Par-3 [Contest], and now it's time to end this part of my Masters career. I would love to go on doing it forever, but I don't have the physical capability to hit the shot the way I would want to hit it. So I'll have to be content to watch.

When you play by the rules, defy mental demons, overcome every challenge, and enjoy a walk in the country at the same time - that's being alive.

In my early days of flying, if you flew on instruments, you were inevitably going to fly in thunderstorms. That was just a part of the business of flying.

There's no question that the galleries still like to see birdies and eagles. If you take them all away, it takes some of the dramatics, the excitement of a golf tournament and we [people] don't want to do that.

I always said that if I have the perfect club then I should play the perfect game.

As long as I can stay competitive and have fun doing what I'm doing, I guess I'll keep doing it.

I think today's athletes generally are spoiled by what's happened to salaries, but I also think that golfers have maintained the best demeanor of any sport.

Don't be ashamed to play safe.

I was playing cowboys and Indians in the trees, and then I started hitting the golf club with clubs father sawed off for me, and I began playing right here with my father.

For years I did take my time, but that was because I hated waiting to hit shots - I adopted a pace where I didn't have to stand by my ball and wait.

Winning is a drive, it's a thing that you feel like when I go to bed at night I go to sleep.

I've always made a total effort, even when the odds seemed entirely against me. I never quit trying; I never felt that I didn't have a chance to win.

The fans, I loved them. My mother would be in the gallery, I would look right at my mother and not remember.

I never met a winner who had a work ethic. Not somebody who says I have so much talent that naturally I won.

[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.

I look back, it taught me something - it taught me how to live, how to be a better guy, not let defeat be the end of my life.

An athlete must have a certain cockiness to succeed and win, but an athlete must also care about the game he or she plays.

I started [flying] by being scared. When I was an amateur I played a couple tournaments and I had to fly, and got into weather and stuff, and it scared me, and I decided that would not work, I had to learn to fly, I had to find out about airplanes and aeronautical engineering and what it was all about.

I have a psychological feeling about things - and if I have something that I need to accomplish and I accomplish it, I let down after that, and that happened to me in golf.

I received many years of good advice from my father - how to live, how to play, how to be a gentleman.

I've drawn a lot of inspiration from people who have supported me, golfers who have helped me. If it wasn't for the game of golf I'd probably be mowing the greens back in Latrobe.

I played with [Dwight Eisenhower] on the day after I won the Masters at his request. We became everlasting friends. I was with him the day before he died at Walter Reed.

I worked for dad on the grounds and I was in high school and I said I wanted to go to college, and he said, well, you figure it out. He said I will pay for your college but you're going to go to St. Vincent. St. Vincent College right here. That's about as much as I can afford, you work here, right here at home. I said, what if I can get somewhere else? And he said if I can get there, that's your call.

First time I met Jack [Nicholas ] I had heard about his golf and prowess - I was playing in the Ohio amateur.

I am so pleased with my golf course. I am to say that it's the best I've ever seen it - without equivocation.

I remember what a thrill it was to attend my first Champions Dinner. Just being in the same room with some of the guys I had admired growing up and to be there because I had won The Masters was quite an honor. I still attend the dinner every year and it is one of the highlights of my time at Augusta during Masters week.

A lot of tournaments that I can remember I made a few bad shots and I was afraid I would lose the tournament and it seemed to work, the putts seemed to go in. Just the Desire.

I would not have been able to accomplish a lot of what I did professionally had I not learned to fly myself and owned an airplane. For example, I was able to fly to an exhibition for the day and be back home in time for dinner. I never would have been able to do that flying commercially.

If you are really serious about playing golf and playing good golf, stick to the basic fundamentals. Sure, there's going to be a little change here and a change there, but you don't want to make them. You want to stick to the things that you started with, and you learned, and you know how to apply them.

All the things that I have derived either directly or indirectly through the game of golf are things I owe a great deal to the game and to the people who support the game.

The fans motivated me. They gave me the incentive to want to play and to want to win and to continue to play as my career progressed. They were never a distraction.

I would never felt good if I hadn't experienced losing, because losing is part of your life. And it something that if I could teach people to understand that I think it could help them a lot.

Phil [Mickelson] has done a great job. He's a great player and he's conducted himself very well through the years. He's been a good ambassador for the game. He hasn't won in a while, but he still has time, and it wouldn't surprise me if he won again.

My grandson Sam Saunders has been playing golf since he could hold a club and I spent a lot of time with him over the years. Like my father taught me, I showed him the fundamentals of the game and helped him make adjustments as he and his game matured over the years.

I think the people I have met have meant a great deal to me, more than any shot I ever hit. I will always remember some golf shots, but others I would like to forget.

The secret of concentration is the secret of self-discovery. You reach inside yourself to discover your personal resources, and what it takes to match them to the challenge.

I still enjoy what I do. I haven't been playing much golf and none since I dislocated my shoulder, but I come to the office every day.

My father started on this golf course at Latrobe when he was sixteen years old. He was digging ditches when they were building the golf course.

Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated.

I enjoy the press. I understand their business.