Jack Nicklaus

Success depends almost entirely on how effectively you learn to manage the game’s two ultimate adversaries: the course and yourself.

Professional golf is the only sport where, if you win 20% of the time, you’re the best.

The older you get the stronger the wind gets and it’s always in your face.

My ability to concentrate and work toward that goal has been my greatest asset.

How people keep correcting us when we are young! There is always some bad habit or other they tell us we ought to get over. Yet most bad habits are tools to help us through life.

Focus on remedies, not faults.

When I want a long ball, I spin my hips faster.

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

He has the finest, fundamentally sound golf swing I’ve ever seen.

Through the years of experience I have found that air offers less resistance than dirt.

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 he can.

There isn’t a flaw in his golf or his makeup. He will win more majors than Arnold Palmer and me combined. Somebody is going to dust my records. It might as well be Tiger, because he’s such a great kid.

There are no maladies in my golf game. My golf game stinks.

I like trying to win. That’s what golf is all about.

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

He had a lot of talent, but didn’t have much dedication, wasn’t organized, didn’t know how to learn, didn’t know how to comprehend what he was doing, didn’t try to learn how to get better.

I think I fail a bit less than everyone else.

Sometimes the biggest problem is in your head. You’ve got to believe you can play a shot instead of wondering where your next bad shot is coming from.

Golf is a better game played downhill.

I’m a firm believer that in the theory that people only do their best at things they truly enjoy. It is difficult to excel at something you don’t enjoy.

Confidence is the most important single factor in this game, and no matter how great your natural talent, there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work.

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

The longer you play, the better chance the better player has of winning.

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

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

It’s hard not to play golf that’s up to Jack Nicklaus standards when you are Jack Nicklaus.

The game is meant to be fun.

Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety.