Tom Watson Quotes

I'd rather fight 100 structure fires than a wildfire. With a structure fire you know where your flames are, but in the woods it can move anywhere; it can come right up behind you.

No other game combines the wonder of nature with the discipline of sport in such carefully planned ways. A great golf course both frees and challenges a golfer's mind.

Ballybunion is the course on which many golf architects should live and play on before they build golf courses.

This game is so elusive. You try to maintain the peaks and level up the valleys.

Muirfield without a wind is like a lady undressed. No challenge.

After playing Ballybunion for the first time, a man would think that the game of golf originated here.

If a course needs to be in great condition to be played effectively, then the design strategy is flawed.

My golf swing is a bit like ironing a shirt. You get one side smoothed out, turn it over and there is a big wrinkle on the other side. Then you iron that one out, turn it over and there is yet another wrinkle.

Having played the Old Course many times since my first visit in 1981, I am now of the opinion it is one of the best and most beautiful tests of links golf anywhere in the world.

There is no surer or more painful way to learn a rule than to be penalized once for breaking it.

Sometimes you have to lose major championships before you can win them. It's the price you pay for maturing. The more times you can put yourself in pressure situations, the more times you compete, the better off you are.

All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think.

I learned how to win by losing and not liking it.

If you have an ego of any sort, this course [Augusta] will take it and shove it down your throat.

A lot of guys who have have never choked, have never been in the position to do so.

Confidence in golf means being able to concentrate on the problem at hand with no outside interference.

I never hesitated to promote someone I didn't like. The comfortable assistant - the nice guy you like to go on fishing trips with - is a great pitfall. Instead I looked for those sharp, scratchy, harsh, almost unpleasant guys who see and tell you about things as they really are. If you can get enough of them around you, and have patience enough to hear them out, there is no limit to where you can go.

Sometimes thinking too much can destroy your momentum.

Golf will grow so long as it’s fun.

The person I fear most in the last two rounds is myself.