Jack Nicklaus Quotes

I suppose I get a lot of questions about Tiger. But Tiger Woods is a tremendous talent. He plays well. He has a great work ethic. He's probably as talented of a golfer as anyone who's ever played.

Scoring comes from being able to preserve what you've got and play your smart shots when you need to play them and not do stupid things and take advantage of things when have you them.

None of the guys did anything. We never did anything. I never really got into the workout room until I was about 40 years old. I was pretty strong and I didn't think I needed that much.

Focus on remedies, not faults.

For years, I never thought I needed a short game. Finally I just decided to do something about it. I needed to get up and down from tough spots on the par-5s for my birdies. So I went to Phil [Rogers]. He's the best. For the last couple weeks, Phil has been staying at my house and we've been practicing in the evening.

This is a game. That's all it is. It's not a war.

People only do their best at things they truly enjoy

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.

Writers have told me more than once that I'm a better interview in defeat than in victory, which is a compliment I am extremely proud of.

I couldn't care less who I'm paired with. There's nobody I've ever played better or worse with, thank goodness. You don't want any factor to be outside your control. What if Arnie's Army had bothered me? What id I'd said, "Oh geez, I'm paired with Palmer," I'd never had beaten him.

A big part of managing a golf course is managing your swing on the course. A lot of guys can go out and hit a golf ball, but they have no idea how to manage what they do with the ball. I've won as many golf tournaments hitting the ball badly as I have hitting the ball well.

There are interesting times. The game is more fun when you are experimenting. One day yuor great, the next day scatterlog. But your learning. No that's not right. I probably have forgotten more about golf than I will ever learn. What you do is remember some of the things you thought you would never forget.

I'm deadly serious even when I play tennis against my kids. I want to beat their brains out.

I don't think you would have missed that putt, but in these circumstances, I would never give you the opportunity.

Pete Egoscue has totally changed my life. Never have I experienced such complete pain relief as I have by following the Egoscue Method.

They [my sons] all went to different schools and all did different things. They're about as different for five kids as you'll ever see. They don't do anything the same.

I guess that's why they call it Hell.

Pete Dye introduced me to golf course design back in the 1960's. He came to my hometown Columbus, Ohio to work on The Golf Club.

Whether it's pool or Ping Pong, I can't stand to have my kids beat me. Especially Ping Pong! And when they beat me, they just needle the devil out of me. That's fine. I'd rather have that than let them win a shallow victory.

The US Open flag eliminates a lot of players. Some players just weren't meant to win the US Open. Quite often, they know it.

I learned early in my career, where you get so wrapped up and so excited, that all of a sudden you don't think. So I worked very hard to keep myself suppressed. And that's one of the reasons I wasn't gregarious with the gallery.

You're not going to tell me that you're going to find a person who's not a very good athlete and he or she is going to be a great player. But anyone can play the game. That's the nice thing about the game. You don't really have to be a world-class athlete to play the sport [golf] and have fun because of handicap systems.

Sometimes, I'm an ogre. I can be short. I'll walk into the office some days and I've gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, and everybody knows it. I'm a perfectionist. I like to be organized, and I like to get everything done today.

Athletes today get into a single-minded, one sport routine. I can't stand it.

He's going to be around a long, long time, if his body holds up. That's always a concern with a lot of players because of how much they play. A lot of guys can't handle it. But it looks like Tiger Woods can.

Why are we building golf courses? Because we enjoy being outside, bringing man and nature together.

Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety.

There are always new places to go fishing. For any fisherman, there's always a new place, always a new horizon

Arnold's place in history will be as the man who took golf from being a game for the few to a sport for the masses. He was the catalyst who made that happen.

I thoroughly enjoy working with kids, whether it's The First Tee or the lesson tee with my grandkids.

I've said many times before that Pebble Beach is a wonderful thinking-man's golf course. That is why it is such a great U.S. Open venue.

Public appearances are a headache. I hold mine down to a minimum.

Temper is the one thing you can't get rid of by losing it.

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.

Johnny Miller is a very honest guy. That may have been to his detriment sometimes. On television, he's too honest. We talk about it a lot. Do you really need to be that honest? You know what I mean? But he's a good man. He's a good family man. He's got good values, and we're delighted to have him as our honoree.

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

I had polio when I was 13. I started feeling stiff, my joints ached, and over a two-week period I lost my coordination and 20 pounds.

If I had only one more round to play, I would choose to play it at Pebble Beach. I've loved this course from the first time I saw it. It's possibly the best in the world.

Grand Haven will challenge the skilled player yet, because of some width to the holes, it also will be a fun course that the average player can enjoy.

People don't want to go to the dump and have a picnic, they want to go out to a beautiful place and enjoy their day. And so I think our job is to try to take the environment, take what the good Lord has given us, and expand upon it or enhance it, without destroying it.

I think I fail a bit less than everyone else.

We all would like to struggle like Tiger is struggling.

I play the Father/Son every year on the PGA TOUR Champions. I split it between Jackie and Gary as my playing partners.

One of the worst mistakes you can make in golf is trying to force the game.

I think you've all heard my story about my daughter and how we felt Children's Hospital saved her life when she was less than a year old. I won't go through all of the details of that.

I think that Pebble Beach is my favorite golf course to go to. I think Augusta is my favorite place to go play golf.

A perfectly straight shot with a big club is a fluke.

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.