Great Golf Quotes & Sayings

If I was the Jackie Robinson of golf, I sure didn't do a very good job of it. Jackie was followed by hundreds of great black ballplayers who have transformed their sport ... But there are hardly any black kids coming up through the ranks of golf today. — Charlie Sifford

All that proves is that most of the world is too poor to build bowling alleys, golf courses, tennis courts and baseball fields. There's hundreds of millions of poor people out there who still ain't got indoor plumbing, but that don't mean there's something great about an outhouse. Soccer is boring. I've never seen a more boring sport. — Mike Royko

I will say I love competing, and I was in a great era of playing with young Phil Mickelson and older Greg Norman and Nick Price. I don't know if YA Title could throw the ball these days, but you can play golf for a long, long time. — Fred Couples

That's great. They should put the hole in the fairway. — Colin Montgomerie

I try not to get too emotional, whether it's going really well or going really bad, i always try to stay even keel
which is great for golf, but it isn't always great for life. — Dustin Johnson

I have to admit," I said when he finished a lengthy discussion on the types of drivers, "I've been golfing and it's about the most boring thing I've ever done. Old men drive around in golf carts pretending they're sporty and getting grouchy if there's any noise. It's like the nursing-home Olympics."
Nick's mouth dropped open. "It takes great athletic ability to know how to aim and drive the ball that far."
"I get more exercise shopping at the mall," I joked. "I don't come home and tell everyone I won at shopping." Although those red shoes I got on sale the other day felt like a win. — Cindi Madsen

One of my great loves is golf. When I am in L.A., I like to play with a few close friends: no phones, no distractions, the great outdoors and the chance to bet some money to keep it interesting. — Nobu Matsuhisa

I wasn't this nervous playing golf when I was drinking. It's the first tournament I've won on the PGA Tour in a sober manner, so it's a great feeling knowing I can do it sober. I don't think two years ago I could have pulled this off. — John Daly

The key is to design great golf courses all around the world. But my plan is only to do a select few. I devote so much of my time to these. I'm kind of a hands-on kind of person. I always want to do the best that I can in all of my life and this is no different. — Tiger Woods

I don't feel badly about that. There's a lot of energy on the golf course. The guys are playing great. I like the pairings in the afternoon. I'm going to take what we've got. — Hal Sutton

I play golf for a living. I'm grateful for that. It's a beautiful game, provides a great opportunity. — Zach Johnson

Apart from golf, it was a great week. — Webb Simpson

The early versions of 'Shell's Wonderful World of Golf' were great. It's sort of interesting: as it progressed, it became worse and worse, but the early versions were really fantastic with Jimmy Demaret and Gene Sarazen. They were classics. — Donald Trump

New Zealand has a great reputation in America for golf. — Hale Irwin

You don't go home and talk about the great tennis courts that you played, but you do talk about the golf courses you played. — Hank Ketcham

He suggested I play golf, but finally agreed to give me something that, he said, "would really work"; and going to a cabinet, he produced a vial of violet-blue capsules banded with dark purple at one end, which, he said, had just been placed on the market and were intended not for neurotics whom a draft of water could calm if properly administered, but only for great sleepless artists who had to die for a few hours in order to live for centuries. — Vladimir Nabokov

Great champions learn from past experiences, whether those be good or bad. A lot of times a guy needs to be knocked down before he gets up and fights. — Paul Azinger

Golf is not a game of great shots. It's a game of most accurate misses. The people who win make the smallest mistakes. — Gene Littler

A good player who is a great putter is a match for any golfer. A great hitter who cannot putt is a match for no one. — Ben Sayers

I will fall in love with any golf course that you have to drive the ball straight. You understand what I'm saying? That's my advantage. My advantage wasn't putting. In fact, I wasn't even a great putter or a good putter. — Lee Trevino

Einstein is notmerely an artist in his moments of leisure and play, as a great statesman may play golf or a great soldier grow orchids. He retains the same attitude in the whole of his work. He traces science to its roots in emotion, which is exactly where art is also rooted. — Havelock Ellis

Mistakes are part of the game. It's how well you recover from them, that's the mark of a great player. — Alice Cooper

You do what you need to if you're serious about playing great golf. — David Duval

The test of a great golfer is his ability to recover from a bad start. — P.G. Wodehouse

There are five top superstars in golf, 20 great stars, and 30 good ones. The rest should go and get jobs. — Mark McCormack

We all know, the ones who play golf, know what a wonderful game it is and what a great past-time it is. — Bernhard Langer

I wish someone had put a golf club in my hands, not skates on my feet. It is a really great game for business. It's a great game for making connections. — Condoleezza Rice

Show me a man with a great golf game, and I'll show you a man who has been neglecting something. — John F. Kennedy

It's great to have a lot of support; people recognizing what you're doing out there and identifying with you in whatever way they see fit is a great fit, I think, and for me it's neat, for people to want to come to the golf course and watch me play golf. — Jason Dufner

You can always speak with great authority on how well you played today, but never on how you'll play tomorrow. — Gary Player

Whenever I dream of playing a perfect round of golf, which I rarely do more than a dozen times a day, I picture myself on one of my favorite British Open-style links, and in particular the great courses of the west of Ireland, whose holes flow through naturally bunkered dunesland never far from the sight or sound of surf. — Henry Beard

My boyfriend loves golf and he is good at it but I am not that great at it. It drives me nuts, but I'm super competitive and I always want to win. — Danica Patrick

You have to understand, I don't play golf for fun. It's my business. When the mailman starts delivering mail on his off day, that's when I'll start playing golf for the hell of it. I like to play in tournaments. There are many great courses around the world that I have never played that are next door to tournaments. I have not played them because I don't play for fun. — Lee Trevino

I receive huge support from Irish and British sports fans alike and it is greatly appreciated. Likewise I feel I have a great affinity with the American sports fans. I play most of my golf in the U.S. nowadays and I am incredibly proud to have won the U.S. Open and U.S. PGA Championship in the last two years. — Rory McIlroy

It's great to be somewhat of a role model. I want to be a positive and good role model and lead by example and try to do the best I can. Playing good golf definitely draws attention, but I want to have a good attitude on the course and do the right things. — Rickie Fowler

There are plenty of guys who played great golf, had great careers and only won a few majors. — Johnny Miller

The world's No. 1 tennis player spends 90 percent of his time winning, while the world's No. 1 golfer spends 90 percent of his time losing. Golfers are great losers. — David Feherty

I expect myself to do well. I'm not, like, 'Oh, well.' I'm not in that category just yet. I don't play great golf a lot anymore. I do it every now and then. I finished third in the British Open last year, so I know I can still do it. — Fred Couples

There's something about being at the tournaments that you don't really get on TV, although golf is a great sport to watch on television. — Bill Paxton

That was a great game of golf, fellers. — Bing Crosby

There are a number of golfers who are playing great golf in their 40s. — Retief Goosen

Dr. Parent has been a great influence on my mental game. ZEN GOLF is the best book at connecting golf and the mind together. It's for everyone, it really helps, and you're really going to enjoy it. — Vijay Singh

It was a great honour to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. I didn't know they had a caddie division. — Bob Hope

But golf being an international game and everybody loving the game the way they do, if you want to spread the game of golf, it's good that you have great competition. — Gary Player

The great players have a set of golf clubs in their feet — Kevin Keegan

My slogan is who needs fitness when you've got great equipment. — John Daly

Art is not predictable. Art is not golf, as great as that may be. There are 360 degrees of choice to make. — Tina Weymouth

It is a very positive event, being nervous. It allows you to do great things. — Tom Kite

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

You know, I go to work in a great office every day, and the amount of freedom that goes with being a pro golfer on the tour is awesome. So I get to enjoy my weeks off away from the course, and then I get to go to work on some of the best golf courses in the world out here. — Adam Derek Scott

For a competitive junkie like me, golf is a great solution because it smacks you in the face every time you think you have accomplished something. That to me has taken over a lot of the energy and competitiveness for basketball. — Michael Jordan

I've got a great life. It's a shame the work gets in the way of the golf, really. — Len Goodman

I was shooting in the low 70s and 60s by the time I was 12. That's the great thing about golf. It doesn't matter how old or young you are. If you're 90 and can shoot a good score, people will want to play with you. — Bubba Watson

I'm just more into playing golf. It's a great thing. — Kenny G

Somewhere out there are a few men with more innate talent at golf than Jack Nicklaus, or women with greater ability at tennis than Chris Evert or Martina Navratilova, but they will never lift a club or swing a racket and therefore will never find out how great they could have been. Instead, they'll be content to sit and watch stars perform on television. — Donald Trump

Every golfer should come to the first tee with fourteen clubs, a dozen balls, a handful of tees, and at least one great golf story — Lee Trevino

There was clearly great charm and worth in a sport so quaintly perverse in its basic instructions. Hit down to make the ball rise. Swing easy to make it go far. Finish high to make it go straight. — John Updike

Tiger had the advantage of high school, college, and a father who knew golf. I was self-taught. Blacks really won't play golf in great numbers until some of these basketball and football stars buy some golf courses where blacks can play. — Charlie Sifford

Cyclists, I work with a number of cyclists. They are great athletes; they are great aerobic athletes. If you ask them to hit a baseball or golf ball, they can't do that. — Eric Heiden

For sure, with golf it's not a physically demanding sport like tennis. That's what makes tennis great - you combine both things. It's a very mental sport and at the same time can be dramatically physical. But I do admire the mentality of sport more than the physicality because physical performance is much easier to practice than mental performance. — Rafael Nadal

I was very lucky because hanging out at a golf course was much better than being on the streets. Golf taught me a great deal. I grew up surrounded by people who were professionals - lawyers, doctors, engineers. Around them, I learned how to behave, speak, eat, dress. I had nothing at home. The club was my home. — Angel Cabrera

I mean, I think having a great family like I do. You know, I tend to want to give it all I have when I'm at the golf course, and then when I leave I don't want to think about golf at all. And I just remind myself almost daily that golf's just my job, it's not who I am. — Webb Simpson

I'm a great believer that if you don't get the ball to the hole, it won't go in. — Colin Montgomerie

St. Andrews by far is my favorite golf course in the world. It's where the game all started, it's why we have 18 holes instead of 22 and I think the history behind St. Andrews is amazing. There is no other golf course in the world that can say that every great player who has ever played the game has played that golf course. — Tiger Woods

Golf is the Great Mystery. Like some capricous goddess, it bestows its favours with what would appear an almost fat-headed lack of method and discrimination. On every side we see big two-fisted he-men floundering round in three figures, stopping every few minutes to let through little shrimps with knock-knees and hollow cheeks, who are tearing up snappy seventy-fours. — P.G. Wodehouse

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. — Tom Watson

I have been an avid reader of 'Golf Digest' ever since I started playing this great game. — Paula Creamer

You learn their honesty, you learn their competitiveness. You learn a lot about a person. It's not that they have to sink the putt and there's a great deal of talent involved - but you do learn about how competitive a person is on the golf course, and frankly, how honest. — Donald Trump

Nothing goes down slower than a golf handicap. — Bobby Nichols

Golf has an ambivalent relationship with the environment. On one hand, it's a great preserver of open spaces. Golf doesn't pave the world - it helps to green the world. But the downside is, it uses a lot of fertilizer, pesticides and water. — Thomas Friedman

I was from North Carolina, so as a youngster all of my mind games about golf were always, 'If I make this I win The Masters, if I hole this par putt I win The Masters.' So it was a great thrill to play there. — Raymond Floyd

I'm a golfer, and what are the two sports you can do till you drop? Golf and surfing. They're great for you limber-wise, they're great for you health-wise, and they put you in sweet locations. — Matthew McConaughey

Golfers should not fail to realize that it is a game of great traditions, of high ideals of sportsmanship, one in which a strict adherence to the rules is essential. — Francis Ouimet

I have great respect for Jaypee Greens as a company that has produced a truly world class, 24-carat, championship golf course. I am happy to be associated with a company with such outstanding qualities. — Kapil Dev

The great thing about this game is that the bad days are wonderful. — William J. Clinton

The problem with art is, it's not like the game of golf where you put the ball in the hole. There's no umpire; there's no judge. There are no rules. It's one of its problems. But it's also one of the great things about art. It becomes a question of what lasts. — Richard Prince

There have been so many great moments in golf that you even forget some of them. — Dan Jenkins

We live in a highly competitive society, each of us trying to outdo the other in wealth, in popularity or social prestige, in dress, in scholastic grades or golf scores. One is often tempted to say that conflict, rather than cooperation, is the great governing principle of human life. — S.I. Hayakawa

Owning a great golf course gives you great power. — Donald Trump

Dennis Murray is a wonderful Golf Professional who is personable and skillful as an instructor. Dennis helped me work on my golf swing for a full week back in the 80's when I was still playing the PGA Tour. His instruction was great and helped my game very much. — Jerry Pate

All the things that I have derived either directly or indirectly through the game of golf are things I owe a great deal to the game and to the people who support the game. — Arnold Palmer

But, Bill, old scout, your sister says there's a most corking links near here."
He turned and stared at me, and nearly ran us into the bank.
"You don't mean honestly she said that?"
"She said you said it was better than St. Andrews."
"So I did. Was that all she said I said?"
"Well, wasn't it enough?"
"She didn't happen to mention that I added the words, 'I don't think'?"
"No, she forgot to tell me that."
"It's the worst course in Great Britain. — P.G. Wodehouse

One of the reasons why I, 'a medical man' decided to give up medicine was a firm conviction of the extraordinary influence on health of pleasurable excitement, especially when combined with fresh air and exercise. How frequently have I, with great difficulty, persuaded patients who were never off my doorsteps to take up golf, and how rarely, if ever, I have seen them in my consulting room again. — Alister MacKenzie

You know, why the game of golf is popular? Very easy, it's a great game. — Bernhard Langer

And if you're a golfer and you watch a golf film and Matt Damon swing, and it's not great, then you're not going to believe in the golf story, you're not going to believe in the rest of the film. That's the whole movie, so if that swing looks like crap, the movie's crap. — Shia Labeouf

We know that golf is an ancient game with great history and tradition, but our golf is only 10 years old so don't judge us too harshly. — Nursultan Nazarbayev

The great thing about my two lives is I love them both. I'm very ambitious and nothing gets in the way of me practising and concentrating on winning golf tournaments. But then I come home and get back to normality. — Rory McIlroy

When I was a kid, dressing right and looking good was a priority. As I grew up, I just wanted to stay that way, stick out a bit and have my own thing. That's where white belts and wearing some colors started. So signing with Puma was a great fit for me. I usually travel with nine pairs of golf shoes and 10 belts. — Rickie Fowler

The TV and the public pay our wages and they like to see professional golfers mess it up. Missing a green with a chip shot - when do you see that? It's great to see exciting golf like we had last week. — Paul McGinley

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. — Jack Nicklaus

I was quite cocky, but having been hailed as this great young golfer, I couldn't even make the high school golf team once I got there. I had a big dose of humble pie then, and ever since, I've always known that there is always someone out there better than you, more talented. Always. — David Chang

What a shame to waste those great shots on the practice tee. — Walter Hagen

Golf has been such a gift in my life, and I've enjoyed it so much and enjoyed lots of wonderful times on the golf course with my husband first, and then I got to play in all these celebrity tournaments. I'm often the only female celebrity in the tournament, hence the term 'Token Chick.' So it's been such a great, great gift in my life. — Cheryl Ladd

I learned one thing from jumping motorcycles that was of great value on the golf course, the putting green especially: Whatever you do, don't come up short. — Evel Knievel

Never concede the putt that beats you. — Harry Vardon

If you have ever seen a dragon in a pinch, you will realize that this was only poetical exaggeration applied to any hobbit, even to Old Took's great-granduncle Bullroarer, who was so huge (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse. He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king Golfibul's head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf was invented at the same moment. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The USGA doesn't want to recognize the fact that today's players are better than ever. They seem willing to do anything to prevent us from shooting scores that would make us appear better than the great names of the past. — Hale Irwin

Rockwood didn't have a movie theater or an IHOP or a strip mall. But it did have two churches, a ramshackle bar, and last (but certainly not least) Wacky Willie's Deluxe Goofy Golf, a barren landscape of wilted ferns and plastic flamingos with peeling paint. Wacky Willie had added the 'Deluxe' when finally ridding the thirteenth hole windmill of a stubborn family of bats after a great and terrible struggle that would forever be known as 'The Fearsome Bat War of Rockwood County' by Willie, but was usually referred to as 'That Time Willie Had to Get Rabies Shots' by everyone else. — A. Lee Martinez

Every day I try to tell myself that this is going to be fun today. I try to put myself in a great frame of mind before I go out - then I screw it up with the first shot. — Johnny Miller

A great deal of unnecessarily bad golf is played in this world. — Harry Vardon