Jack Nicklaus
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.Collection: Design
The longer you play, the better chance the better player has of winning.Collection: Chance
The fact is, I diet every day of my life. I have to work at it. But I diet so I can pig out.Collection: Diet
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.Collection: Work
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.Collection: Design
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.Collection: Design
Golf is game of respect and sportsmanship; we have to respect its traditions and its rules.Collection: Respect
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.Collection: Hope
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.Collection: Design
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.Collection: Sports
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.Collection: Sports
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.Collection: Design
Success depends almost entirely on how effectively you learn to manage the game's two ultimate adversaries: the course and yourself.Collection: Success
He has the finest, fundamentally sound golf swing I've ever seen.Collection: Sports
A kid grows up a lot faster on the golf course. Golf teaches you how to behave.
Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety.
There are always new places to go fishing. For any fisherman, there's always a new place, always a new horizon.
Focus on remedies, not faults.
Resolve never to quit, never to give up, no matter what the situation.
The best way to cope with trouble is to stay out of it as much as possible.
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.
See, as much as I love the game, golf was my vehicle to competition. And I love to compete.
Crises are part of life. Everybody has to face them, and it doesn't make any difference what the crisis is.
There are no maladies in my golf game. My golf game stinks.
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.
Writers have told me more than once that I'm a better interview in defeat than in victory, which is a compliment I am extremely proud of.
The older you get the stronger the wind gets and it's always in your face.
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.
A perfectly straight shot with a big club is a fluke.
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'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.
Why are we building golf courses? Because we enjoy being outside, bringing man and nature together.
Don't be too proud to take lessons. I'm not.
Golf is a better game played downhill.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Golf was my vehicle to competition, and I can't play if I can't compete.
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'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.
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.
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.
I think that Pebble Beach is my favorite golf course to go to. I think Augusta is my favorite place to go play golf.
It's hard not to play golf that's up to Jack Nicklaus standards when you are Jack Nicklaus.
My ability to concentrate and work toward that goal has been my greatest asset.
I think I fail a bit less than everyone else.
The game is meant to be fun.
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.