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.

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.

The game is so fantastic, and people who get into it love it so much...I'd be pleased with that. There's no game like it.

Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.

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.

[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.

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.