Arnold Palmer quotes:

I've always made a total effort, even when the odds seemed entirely against me. I never quit trying; I never felt that I didn't have a chance to win.

Success in golf depends less on strength of body than upon strength of mind and character.

I played with [Dwight Eisenhower] on the day after I won the Masters at his request. We became everlasting friends. I was with him the day before he died at Walter Reed.

What do I mean by concentration? I mean focusing totally on the business at hand and commanding your body to do exactly what you want it to do.

What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive.

We just became very good friends [ with Dwight Eisenhower ], we played golf, we played heart exhibitions. Then his doctor said he should not play golf anymore.

Concentration, Confidence, Competitive urge, Capacity for enjoyment.

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

Concentration comes out of a combination of confidence and hunger.

The road to success is always under construction.

I'm not much for sitting around and thinking about the past or talking about the past. What does that accomplish? If I can give young people something to think about, like the future, that's a better use of my time.

I can remember back to my early tour days when some fellows didn't think I'd last too long. Nothing physical - they said it was my swing. Some said it was too much of a 'muscle swing' to stand the test of time. One fellow predicted I wouldn't get past 30 out there.

The secret of concentration is the secret of self-discovery. You reach inside yourself to discover your personal resources, and what it takes to match them to the challenge.

Putting is like wisdom - partly a natural gift and partly the accumulation of experience.

Winning isn't everything, but wanting it is.

The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done.

I've stated my position, and that is that we do not need a contraption to play the game of golf. I would hope that we'd play under one set of rules, and those rules would include a ban on the long putter hooked to the body in some way, shape or form.

My search for ways to improve my touch has never ended. We players tried a lot of different things and compared notes. Little fads would set in.

I was mixing iced tea and lemonade in my kitchen since as long as I can remember. It wasn't until some time in the early 1960s that it became associated with me publicly.

I quit flying myself last year and that was difficult for me because I enjoy it as much as playing golf. It was an adjustment sitting in the back of the plane, rather than at the controls, but I've grown accustomed to it and enjoy reading a book, doing some work or challenging my wife to a game of dominos.

Had I not become a professional golfer, I think I would have pursued some type of career in aviation.

I used to get tired of drinking iced tea, so I'd ask my wife if we had some lemonade, and I would just dump it right in there.

It's a funny thing, the more I practice the luckier I get.

One thing I've learned over time is, if you hit a golf ball into water, it won't float.

I find myself getting associated with a lot of younger people in the game. I still enjoy playing with them, and I think they still enjoy playing with me. As long as I can stay competitive and have fun doing what I'm doing, I guess I'll keep doing it.

I never quit trying. I never felt that I didn't have a chance to win.

Ever since I bought and started flying an airplane, it's been almost exclusively for business. I love to fly. It's a great joy to me. But rarely do I use it for any kind of pleasure, other than it is a pleasure to fly.

What separates great players from the good ones is not so much ability as brain power and emotional equilibrium.

An athlete must have a certain cockiness to succeed and win, but an athlete must also care about the game he or she plays.

How did I make a twelve on a par five hole? It's simple - I missed a four foot putt for an eleven.

I feel more strongly than ever about this. I would like the professional game freed of golf carts. Golf is a physical game. If we are playing competitive professional golf, we should walk. When I can't walk 18 holes, I'll pack it in.

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've noticed the sound of the golf ball being hit by the golf club is different, and much more realistic, with the hearing aids. The sound with the hearing aids makes sense, and better represents what I know is happening to the golf ball. So you could say that the hearing aids help give me confidence regarding my golf game.

The game has such a hold on golfers because they compete not only against an opponent, but also against the course, against par, and most surely- against themselves.

If you are really serious about playing golf and playing good golf, stick to the basic fundamentals. Sure, there's going to be a little change here and a change there, but you don't want to make them. You want to stick to the things that you started with, and you learned, and you know how to apply them.

I was playing golf in Palm Springs and after a round I asked the waitress in a restaurant to bring me a glass of iced tea and lemonade. A lady sitting nearby heard me and asked the waitress to bring her a "Palmer," too. The name caught on and the beverage quickly spread around the country.

I started [flying] by being scared. When I was an amateur I played a couple tournaments and I had to fly, and got into weather and stuff, and it scared me, and I decided that would not work, I had to learn to fly, I had to find out about airplanes and aeronautical engineering and what it was all about.

It is such a disappointment in American political reaction and actions. When some of our politicians are flying around the country in private airplanes all the time, using public services as their mode of private transportation, and then criticizing us who are in business.

My father started on this golf course at Latrobe when he was sixteen years old. He was digging ditches when they were building the golf course.

I have a tip that can take 5 strokes off anyone's golf game. It's called an eraser.

Timing is everything in life and in golf.

When I was in college, I thought about becoming an attorney. But I wasn't smart enough; I hate being cooped up indoors; and I'm too nice a guy.

Establish a system you have confidence in and rely on it when you get into tough situations.

I've been wearing hearing aids for a long time. The technology available now is simply unbelievable. When I compare the new digital products to what we had 30 years ago, it's an amazing difference.... There was a time when I couldn't hear what most people said to me, most of the time. But with the hearing aids, I understand just about everything ... it really is very impressive.

Feel is the most perplexing part of golf, and probably the most important.

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.

It is a rare and difficult attainment to grow old gracefully and happily.

To me, wearing glasses is no pleasure, but once I conceded that I simply couldn't properly judge distance without them, I began to experiment. I tried glasses and found them uncomfortable. I switched to contact lenses, and they also bothered me.

I don't see myself as a full-time broadcaster. I've done some of it, and I enjoy it, but I don't think I should try to make a career out of it.

It is not a dreamlike state, but the somehow insulated state, that a great musician achieves in a great performance. He's aware of where he is and what he's doing, but his mind is on the playing of the instrument with an internal sense of rightness.

Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening - and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.

The more I practice the luckier I get.

Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated.

I have a tip that will take five strokes off anyone's golf game. It's called an eraser.

I probably have a club in my hands 360 days a year, one way or another, playing with friends or just fiddling around or hitting balls.

I try to deign golf courses that are individual in character and individual in their own standing.

Golf challenges you mentally at any age, and when you become my age, it's a challenge physically to try to make your game work as well as it ever did. That's close to impossible, but that doesn't keep you from trying to hit the ball where you used to hit it and make the putts you used to make all the time.

I think I've heard somebody say that I was a well-dressed golfer. I guess that has something to do with the fact that a lot of people who play golf don't dress very well.

My problem happens to be near-sightedness - inability to see distance. And this is pretty tough on a golfer.

[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.

If you're stupid enough to whiff, you should be smart enough to forget it.

There's no question that the galleries still like to see birdies and eagles. If you take them all away, it takes some of the dramatics, the excitement of a golf tournament and we [people] don't want to do that.

On the Old Course at St. Andrews: This is the origin of the game, golf in its purest form, and it's still played that way on a course seemingly untouched by time. Every time I play here, it reminds me that this is still a game.

When you get into competition and get under pressure, and get over that ball and are looking at it, and know you have to hit it, it is having that system to depend on to get that ball to where you want it to be.

What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive: the white ball sailing up into the sky, reaching its apex, falling and finally dropping to the turf, just the way I planned it.

Here is a philosophy of boldness to take advantage of every tiny opening toward victory.

The whole secret to mastering the game of golf - and this applies to the beginner as well as the pro - is to cultivate a mental approach to the game that will enable you to shrug off the bad days, keep patient and know in your heart that sooner or later you will be back on top.

Golf is deceptively simple, endlessly complicated. A child can play it well and a grown man can never master it. It is almost a science, yet it is a puzzle with no answer.

If you can see it, you can hit it and if you can hit it, you can hole it.

I think today's athletes generally are spoiled by what's happened to salaries, but I also think that golfers have maintained the best demeanor of any sport.

I talk to golfers, I talk to my grand kids about their game, and tell them to develop a system, Now, when they're young. And if they develop that system, it will be the crutch they need to be good. To know that system and make it work for you, know what it is and make it work.

I'm not much for sitting around and thinking about the past or talking about the past. What does that accomplish?

I had a system, and the system worked.

Sam Snead will fly anywhere in my plane with me. Sam's not as worried about the danger as he is about saving money.

I didn't get playing professional golf until I was 25 years old. And I always said that if I could make it work, I would play as long as I could walk.

I never met a winner who had a work ethic. Not somebody who says I have so much talent that naturally I won.

I was national amateur champion. I was 24 years old. My father was there, and I couldn't wait to see him, and my mother. I went up and was waiting for all the accolades, and my mom was teary and happy and my dad looked at me and said, "Well, boy, you did good," and that was it.

Swing your swing. Not some idea of a swing. Not a swing you saw on TV. Not that swing you wish you had. No, swing your swing. Capable of greatness. Prized only by you. Perfect in it's imperfection. Swing your swing. I know, I did.

Every day I play golf, that's my goal. To break 70 the other way. To shoot 70 or better.

First time I met Jack [Nicholas ] I had heard about his golf and prowess - I was playing in the Ohio amateur.

It is not a dreamlike state, but the somehow insulated state, that a great musician achieves in a great performance. He's aware of where he is and what he's doing, but his mind is on the playing of his instrument with an internal sense of rightness - it is not merely mechanical, it is not only spiritual; it is something of both, on a different plane and a more remote one.

I never felt that I didn't have a chance to win.

I am against making golf courses obsolete, going to the national Open and playing half the holes with a one-iron.

Trouble is bad to get into but fun to get out of. If you're in trouble, eighty percent of the time there's a way out. If you can see the ball, you can probably hit it; and if you can hit it, you can move it; and if you can move it, you might be able to knock it in the hole. At least it's fun to try.

I can sum it up like this: Thank God for the game of golf.

I would like to have won more golf tournaments. But I wouldn't sacrifice my life. I've enjoyed it. I'd love to do it again the same way.

Everyone I built a course for thinks they have the best golf course in the world and I'm very pleased and proud of that.

Iâ??m particularly proud of anything the House and the Senate agree on,

Swing your swing. I know, I did.

I would like to say, however, that a man might be walking around lucky and not know it unless he tries.

The only really unplayable lie I can think of is when you're supposed to be playing golf and come home with lipstick on your collar.

Golf is a game of inches. The most important are the six inches between your ears.

The thing I probably love the most is driving out with the championship trophy under my arm.

Even before you step up to the ball, have a full battle plan for the hole worked out.

A lot of people are afraid of winning. I was afraid I might not win.

Putting is a fascinating, aggravating, wonderful, terrible and almost incomprehensible part of the game of golf.

You must play boldly to win.

Players need to remember they didn't make golf. Golf made them.

Know how to win by following the rules

I can only tell you one thing that I do know for sure, I am a dreamer. There are not many people that will recognize or want to recognize the fact that they are dreamers in their own life ... I continue to get up in the morning,enthusiastically, and go pick up a golf club with a thought that I can somewhere find that secret to making the cut. That's just an example, but it applies to other things in life, too, and that's the way I live and the way I think and the way I feel.

I'm in love with golf, and I want everybody else to share my love affair.

Hit it hard, go find it and hit it hard again.

I never rooted against an opponent, but I never rooted for him either.

I would urge the government to allocate more funds toward fighting cancer. My own situation, it made me think. It made me think about the potential of dying. I wouldn't say I was scared. I'm more scared of how it will happen than of it happening. I'm not scared that I'm going to die. I think of how I'm going to die ... I don't want to linger. That scares me a little. The idea of lingering.

If Tiger Woods slamming his club into the ground is the biggest worry wehave, our sport isinprettygood shape.

As long as I can stay competitive and have fun doing what I'm doing, I guess I'll keep doing it.

Don't be ashamed to play safe.

When I was growing up, they had just found radio.

I never felt I could be a complete professional without having won the British Open. It was something you had to do to complete your career.

You can describe my round as having moments of ecstasy and stark raving terror. I looked like I knew what I was doing at times and at other times I looked like a twenty handicap player.

I guess most of us would rather not discuss cancer because we are all afraid we might be told we have it. It's hard for people to even say the word, and that's the first obstacle you have to overcome when you are diagnosed with the disease. I think once you understand a little more about it ... I don't mean it gets any easier ... but I think you give it more in-depth thought about how you're going to deal with it.

I suppose I could think of a lot of things to say about the fact that I still play. But I don't really need to. I can tell you this, that I enjoy it. I still enjoy it. I like to get out in the air and I like to walk and I like to do the things that are involved in playing golf.

From the beginning it was drilled into me that a golf course was a place where character fully reveals itself -- both its strengths and its flaws. As a result, I learned early not only to fix my ball marks but also to congratulate an opponent on a good shot, avoid walking ahead of a player preparing to shoot, remain perfectly still when someone else was playing, and a score of other small courtesies that revealed, in my father's mind, one's abiding respect for the game.

Frankly, I'm not much for funerals unless it's absolutely an obligation. I don't feel it serves much of a purpose to go and see my friends just lying there, dead. I try to pay my respects to my friends when they're alive.

Your worst putt will usually be as good as your best chip.

Golf never ceases to be a challenge, even when it really is just you and the ball out there and nobody else.

When you play by the rules, defy mental demons, overcome every challenge, and enjoy a walk in the country at the same time - that's being alive.

I've drawn a lot of inspiration from people who have supported me, golfers who have helped me. If it wasn't for the game of golf I'd probably be mowing the greens back in Latrobe.

I remember what a thrill it was to attend my first Champions Dinner. Just being in the same room with some of the guys I had admired growing up and to be there because I had won The Masters was quite an honor. I still attend the dinner every year and it is one of the highlights of my time at Augusta during Masters week.