Portal:Golf/Quotes archive

July 21, 2007 to August 31, 2007

• I look into [my opponents'] eyes, shake their hand, pat their back, and wish them luck, but I am thinking, I am going to bury you. — Spanish professional golfer Severiano Ballesteros, on his competitive nature and self-confidence
• Golf is an awkward set of bodily contortions designed to produce a graceful result. — Scottish-American professional golfer Tommy Armour, on the beauty of golf as produced by the unnatural machinations of the golf swing
• They say golf is like life, but don't believe them: golf is more complicated than that. — American professional golfer and golf course architect Gardner Dickinson
• Golf [is] the art of driving hard, avoiding the rough, surmounting traps and hazards, aiming straight, and arriving on the green at last, only to end up in a hole in the ground before your companions. The favored pastime of businessmen and their cronies, probably without a full appreciation of its metaphorical implications. — American humorist and essayist Rick Bayan, in his 1994 The Cynic's Dictionary
• It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place this world is when one is playing golf. — Northern Irish essayist Robert Wilson Lynd, on the tranquility of the golf course

June 2, 2007 to June 17, 2007; June 20, 2007 to June 24, 2007

• Golf is an open exhibition of overweening ambition, courage deflated by stupidity, skill scoured by a whiff of arrogance. — British-American broadcaster Alistair Cooke
• The ardent golfer would play Mount Everest if somebody would but a flag stick on top. — American golf course architect Pete Dye, on the passion of players for golf, especially where challenging
• Golf is a spiritual game. It's like Zen. You have to let your mind take over. — American professional golfer Amy Alcott, on the psychological aspects of golf
• Golf is like chasing a quinine pill around a cow pasture. — British Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill, on the difficulty and caprice of the sport
• Eighteen holes of match or medal play will teach you more about your foe than will 18 years of dealing with him across a desk. — American sportswriter Grantland Rice, on the character-revealing nature of golf

April 22, 2007 to April 29, 2007

• Love and putting are mysteries for the philosopher to solve. Both subjects are beyond golfers. — Scottish-American professional golfer Tommy Armour, on the difficulty and caprice of putting
• Golf, like the measles, should be caught young, for, if postponed to riper years, the results may be serious. — English comedic author Sir P.G. Wodehouse in his 1922 A Mixed Threesome
• Wherever we play golf, people come out here to get autographs. They obviously come out to watch us play and see us in action, but they also want to interact with us. — German professional golfer Bernhard Langer, on the unique nature of golf as a spectator sport
• Placing the ball in the right position for the next shot is eighty percent of winning in golf. — American professional golfer Ben Hogan
• The golf swing is like a suitcase into which we are trying to pack one too many things. — American author John Updike, on the complexity of the golf swing and the danger of one's overthinking such swing

August 19, 2006 to April 22, 2007

• It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place this world is when one is playing golf. — Northern Irish essayist Robert Wilson Lynd
• It's easy to see golf not as a game at all but as some whey-faced, nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister's fever dream of exorcism achieved through ritual and self-mortification. — Canadian author Bruce McCall, on the frequency with which golf proves vexing
• Golf is a game to teach you about the messages from within, about the subtle voices of the body-mind. And once you understand them you can more clearly see your hamartia, the ways in which your approach to the game reflects your entire life. Nowhere does a man go so naked. — American integral thought philosopher and author Michael Murphy , on the quality of golf as character-revealing
  

Image:Gerg Norman visit USS John F Kennedy.jpg

• I screwed up. It's all on me. I know that...All these hiccups I have, they must be for a reason. All this is just a test. I just don't know what the test is yet. — Australian professional golfer Greg Norman, pictured, upon his forfeiting a six-stroke lead in the final round of the 1996 Masters Tournament, in which he finished second to Englishman Nick Faldo, and on his recorded fifteen top-five finishes in the four major championship tournaments yet having won just two, the 1986 and 1993 The Open Championship
• The pressure makes me more intent about each shot. Pressure on the last few holes makes me play better. — American professional golfer Nancy Lopez, on her propensity for success late in LPGA Tour golf tournaments, of which she won 48, more than any other player save six, over her career
• The beauty of golf, you're in charge out here. — Canadian professional golfer Mike Weir, on the nature of golf as an individual sport
• There's something intrinsically therapeutic about choosing to spend your time in a wide, open park-like setting that non-golfers can never truly understand. — American screenwriter Charles Rosin, on the idyllic quality of golf, in a 1990 episode of the American television dramatic comedy series Northern Exposure
• 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. — American professional golfer Tom Watson
• Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose. — English politician and author Sir Winston Churchill, on the nature of golf as a difficult precision sport
• I don't think you would have missed that putt, but in these circumstances, I would never give you the opportunity. — American professional golfer Jack Nicklaus, conceding a putt to Briton Tony Jacklin at Royal Birkdale in Southport, England, at the 1969 Ryder Cup Matches, and thereby permitting the British team to secure a 16-16 draw

July 26 to August 19, 2006

• Golf is so popular simply because it is the best game in the world at which to be bad. — British author A.A. Milne
• You are meant to play the ball as it lies, a fact that may help to touch on your own objective approach to life. — American sportswriter Grantland Rice
• If I had won...all those other championships, my life might be totally different, but I didn't win. It's not going to affect my life. — Australian professional golfer Greg Norman, on his having won 20 PGA Tour events and having recorded fifteen top-five finishes in the four major championship tournaments–The Masters, the United States Open, The Open Championship, and the PGA Championship–yet having won just two of the latter, the 1986 and 1993 Open Championships
• I've not given up hope the belly-putter will be banned. The R and A and the USGA are looking at it right now. — South African professional golfer Ernie Els, pictured, on the desire of some players that putters with elongated shafts should be banned from use in tournament play by the The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews and the United States Golf Association, the two ruling authorities responsible for the promulgation of the Rules of Golf

Image:Ernie smiling 800.jpg

• The rookies are awesome. They are the future of the LPGA Tour. They have to go on with it and keep this going and stay as they are. — American professional golfer and Solheim Cup team captain, on the performances of Paula Creamer, Natalie Gulbis, and Christina Kim, each then aged fewer than 23 years, in the 2005 Cup, in which the American team defeated that representing Europe, 15½-12½
• What a stupid I am! — Argentine professional golfer and World Golf Hall of Famer Roberto DeVicenzo, upon his learning of having signed an incorrect scorecard–one that, wrongly marked by playing partner Tommy Aaron, assessed him one extra stroke–subsequent to his final round at the 1968 Masters Tournament and thus having forfeited the opportunity to contest an 18-hole playoff against Bob Goalby
• I just never subscribed to the theory that at age 55, you fall off the face of the earth on the Tour...I always felt that was too young of an age for that. — American professional golfer Hale Irwin, on his having played in PGA Tour events whilst eligible for and playing on the Champions Tour
• It was a gift, something you can't teach. His hands looked like they were born to have a golf club in them. — American professional golfer Curtis Strange, on smooth golf swing of American professional golfer Sam Snead, the winningest-ever PGA Tour player and a seven-time men's major and six-time senior men's major champion
• Golf is a game of coordination, rhythm, and grace; women have these to a high degree. — American professional golfer Babe Zaharias, the 1950 Grand Slam winner and seven-time major champion, on confronting the mid-20th century male-centricity of the sport

July 2 to July 26, 2006

• Golf is a game that is played on a five-inch course–the distance between your ears. – American golfer Bobby Jones
• I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles. – British author G. K. Chesterton
• I miss it, I miss it, I miss it, I make it. – Spanish golfer Severiano Ballesteros, on his requiring four putts to complete the 16th hole at Augusta National Golf Club during The Masters Tournament in 1988, in which he eventually finished 11th
• His driving is unbelievable. I don't go that far on my holidays. – Australian golfer Ian Baker-Finch, on the long tee shots of American golfer John Daly
• I hope she misses the cut. She doesn't belong here. – Fijian golfer Vijay Singh, on Swedish golfer Annika Sörenstam's playing in the 2003 Bank of America Colonial tournament, an event on the PGA Tour
• I had a 15th club in my bag. – American golfer Ben Crenshaw, on why he won The Masters Tournament in 1995, referencing his erstwhile golf instructor, American Harvey Penick, who had died just three days thither
• We create success or failure on the course primarily by our thoughts. – South African Gary Player, on the importance of a professional golfer's mental fitness
  

Image:Jerryford.jpg

• Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated. – American golfer Arnold Palmer
• I know I'm getting better at golf because I'm hitting fewer spectators. – American president Gerald Ford, pictured, joking about his proclivity toward hitting errant golf shots, especially off the tee

June 3 to July 2, 2006

• Forget your opponents; always play against par. - American golfer Sam Snead
• Golf is a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness. - British poet William Wordsworth
• Golf is an ineffectual attempt to put an elusive ball into an obscure hole with implements ill-adapted to the purpose. - American President Woodrow Wilson
• It is nothing new or original to say that golf is played one stroke at a time. But it took me many years to realize it. - American golfer and course architect Bobby Jones
• Michelle is 14. Give her a couple of years to get stronger. I mean, she can play on this tour [the PGA Tour]. If she keeps working, keeps doing the right things, there's no reason why she shouldn't be out here. - South African golfer Ernie Els, on American golfer Michelle Wie after the 2004 Sony Open, where Wie missed by one stroke qualifying for weekend play
• What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive. - American golfer Arnold Palmer
• Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing. - American golfer Ben Hogan
• I just didn't feel comfortable hitting a wedge. To me it's against the spirit of the game, and maybe it would have been against the spirit of a Frenchman. - French golfer Jean van de Velde, explaining why, on the last hole of the 1999 Open Championship, needing only to avoid a triple bogey to win, he played aggressively and recorded a seven, eventually losing the Claret Jug in a playoff