Jack Nicklaus quotes:

Well, I think that Augusta is not the same golf course that I grew up on. Bobby Jones' philosophy was giving you space off the tee; if you put it in the right side of the fairway, you ended up getting the right angle to the green.

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.

If I have a weakness, it's probably ice cream. That's where I get lax, sloppy. I'll sneak into the refrigerator at night and take two or three bites and put it back. Butter pecan. Only two or three bites, but it shows.

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

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.

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

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

The Senior Tour is a good concept, although frankly I'm not astounded at its continued success. It gives a lot of guys an opportunity to extend their careers.

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

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.

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

Golf is a better game played downhill.

I love design in general, the creativity. Whether it is golf courses, my apparel line, ads we do or our business with AriZona, design is fun.

I'd rather be two strokes ahead going into the last day than two strokes behind. Having said that, it's probably easier to win coming from behind. There is no fear in chasing. There is fear in being chased.

I have said many times that most people work all their life to retire to play golf, while I played golf all my life to retire to work. I enjoy working. It has kept me young and on the move, and I have had a good time with it.

The way I pack is I look at how long I'll be gone and I pack day for day. If I'm going on a three-day fishing trip, I plot each day. I put most of that in a little bag. If I'm going from there to work on golf courses for a few days, I plot that trip.

Golf is game of respect and sportsmanship; we have to respect its traditions and its rules.

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

See, as much as I love the game, golf was my vehicle to competition. And I love to compete.

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

Mostly I built golf courses the way I played golf, which was left-to-right. But I learned very rapidly that people wanted to see more than just the way I played golf and that I had to balance up what I was doing, right-to-left, left-to-right, etc.

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

I don't believe in luck. Not in golf, anyway. There are good bounces and bad bounces, sure, but the ball is round and so is the hole. If you find yourself in a position where you hope for luck to pull you through, you're in serious trouble.

Golf was my vehicle to competition, and I can't play if I can't compete.

But if I played well and prepared myself properly, then all I had to do was control myself and put myself in a position to win.

A Nicklaus Design golf course is done by the guys in my company that I work with, that have been trained in my vision, and they do what they think I might do. They might come in the office and ask me questions and I'd certainly answer their questions, but I'm not involved in the site visits or anything else.

I like to catch fish and release them. I probably haven't killed a fish that I've caught in sport fishing for 20 years. No reason to kill it. You know, just take it and release it.

The long irons are the nemesis of the average golfer. I'm convinced that the underlying reason for this is that he keeps hearing how hard they are to handle. They're not that difficult, truly.

I never worried about money, except that I knew that all I had to worry about was golf. As long as I could play, I was going to make money.

And, of course, I'm constantly energized by designing courses around the world.

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

Crises are part of life. Everybody has to face them, and it doesn't make any difference what the crisis is.

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

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

Achievement is largely the product of steadily raising one's level of aspiration and expectation.

Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety.

Ben Hogan was not really a big hitter. He was long enough. But Ben Hogan today? Ben Hogan today could not compete at Augusta because he did not have the massive length to compete against the long hitters. Power was always an issue at Augusta, but never so dominant that you couldn't play it.

I've been fortunate over my career to make a little history on the 16th hole at Augusta National.

Augusta National is a young man's golf course, and you really need a young man's nerves to play on it.

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.

I think in my case winning fans came as a result of winning tournaments. Certainly, I didn't have too many supporters when I came on Tour. I didn't look like an athlete, I was overweight, had a crew cut, baggy clothes and on top of that I didn't smile much. I was very serious about my game, literally and figuratively the heavy.

Learn the fundamentals of the game and stick to them. Band-Aid remedies never last.

There is no room in your mind for negative thoughts. The busier you keep yourself with the particulars of shot assessment and execution, the less chance your mind has to dwell on the emotional. This is sheer intensity.

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.

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.

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.

Golf is not, and never has been, a fair game.

Focus on remedies, not faults.

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

It takes hundreds of good golf shots to gain confidence, but only one bad one to lose it.

I couldn't control Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Watson or Lee Trevino. The only person I could control was me. The only person I could prepare for events was me. And if I didn't play well, I didn't play well, and I wasn't going to compete.

I've always tried to play golf with a golf club. I have a hard time driving with my rifle. I mean, 18 is really narrow ... I have no problem with the course, except for the tee shot on 18.

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

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.

Did you know there's probably more golf played in Iceland than most places in the world? They play 24 hours a day in the summertime and the northern part is warmer than the southern part.

If there is one thing I have learned during my years as a professional, it is that the only thing constant about golf is its inconstancy.

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.

Golfers have a tendency to be very masochistic. They like to punish themselves for some reason. A lot of them like tough courses.

If you'd asked me at 30 where I'd be during the Masters when I was 46, I'd have pictured myself on a boat fishing, smoking a cigar, drinking a mint julep and watching it on television.

There is no room in your mind for negative thoughts.

When I fly in a helicopter, I insist there be two sets of controls, one for me in case something happens to the pilot. I'm no expert, but I know enough to at least get the thing on the ground. Nothing scares me like the thought of not being in control.

That's sort of overkill. We've had 70 years of the Ryder Cup, and it's gotten along just fine. The pendulum will swing back without making a monumental thing about it.

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.

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.

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.

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

If I had one golf course, from a design standpoint, one that I really love, it would probably be Pinehurst. There's a totally tree-lined golf course where trees are not a part of the strategy.

I played competitive golf all my life. Then all of a sudden, when I quit playing the game, I've got all this spare time and this energy. And certainly I wasn't ready to pack up my bags and go sit in front of the television with a shawl on.

I don't really have a problem saying good-bye to things. All things come to an end.

It's a great sense of accomplishment when you can take something and really think it's really tough, and then all of a sudden you conquer it. That makes you feel pretty good.

Well, the biggest rival I had in my career was me.

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

The fact is, I diet every day of my life. I have to work at it. But I diet so I can pig out.

I've never set up any golf course that would favor anybody. I try to make it exactly the opposite, which is what we did at Valhalla when we modernized it to accommodate the lengths players are hitting it today.

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

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

The biggest rival I had in my career was me. I couldn't control Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Watson or Lee Trevino. The only person I could control was me.

I first saw Arnold Palmer when I was just a kid and he came to Columbus to play in a tournament. I watched him on the driving range hit balls that day. We went on to become great friends.

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.

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

The best way to cope with trouble is to stay out of it as much as possible.

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.

I've wanted to design golf courses ever since I was a kid. I suppose it comes from the way I've played the game. To find the proper way to play any hole, I've always begun by asking myself what the architect has tried to do with it.

I might cook occasionally, but I'm not a good cook. That's not my passion.

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.

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

I can barely turn on my computer!

All I ever wanted to do was play competitive golf against the best players in the world.

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

Naturally it is nice to be widely known for worthwhile achievements, but it forces you to do many things which you don't like to do and these things take up time you want for other things.

Pursue what you love, what you are passionate about. Don't let somebody else dictate your life's path.

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.

I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head.

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.

I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head. It's like a color movie. First I 'see' where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes and I 'see' the ball going there: its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behavior on landing. Then there is this sort of fadeout, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images to reality.

Talent isn't as important as the work and dedication necessary to become competent.

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

Pressure is what you live for...if you are going to be successful in life, you're going to have pressure.

We don't have to do a bunch of things to figure out how to win the Ryder Cup. Just go play golf. ... I'm a little bit too casual probably about a lot of things, but you can't force good play. Good play comes from good hard work and actually being prepared to play, not being forced to play.

If a guy is a good athlete, he'll end up being a pretty decent golfer if he just takes it up. But you never master it; even the best players in the world never master the game.

Nobody - but nobody - has ever become really proficient at golf without practice, without doing a lot of thinking and then hitting a lot of shots. It isn't so much a lack of talent; it's a lack of being able to repeat good shots consistently that frustrates most players. And the only answer to that is practice.

It's difficult to excel at something you don't truly enjoy.

Once you play a tournament, you're playing against the golf course, you're playing against yourself and trying to do the best you can.

You're always struggling because you're not playing on a 53-and-a-third by a 120-yard field. You're not playing on a baseball diamond. With golf, every field is different and every atmosphere is different. The grass is different. The weather is different. You're outside. You're not in a stadium. There are so many different variables, so you never master golf. So, I think good athletes like a challenge.

Every putt is different. Your feet dictate the stroke by how they feel on the green. I just never used the same stroke on every putt.

Golf is a game of precision, not strength.

I came back and in '63, I was at the British Open, trying to win my first British Open. And I had what I thought was a two-shot lead with two holes to play at Lytham. I remember it like it was yesterday. Anybody with a proper brain would have played the ball short of the hole. I didn't have a proper brain at the time. But you have to make that mistake to learn it.

Ask yourself how many shots you would have saved if you always developed a strategy before you hit, always played within your capabilities, never lost you temper, and never got down on yourself.

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.

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.

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

If there is one thing golf demands above all else, it is honesty.

I never missed a putt in my mind.

Complacency is a continuous struggle that we all have to fight.

Tee your ball high...air offers less resistance than dirt.

People only do their best at things they truly enjoy

It's great to win, but it's also great fun just to be in the thick of any truly well and hard fought contest against opponents you respect, whatever the outcome.

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.

Golf is a nice game, but that's all. It's never going to be an exciting game to watch on TV. It's not a circus and never will be one. The audience for golf is not going to change significantly. It's always going to be people who play it, understand it, and love it.

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.