Sam Snead Quotes

#1. Forget your opponents; always play against par.

Sam Snead

#2. I believe in destiny ... what's going to be is going to be. If I'm going to win, I'm going to win ... I don't give a damn what the other guy shoots. I'm going to win if it's my turn.

Sam Snead

#3. There are no short hitters on the tour anymore - just long and unbelievably long.

Sam Snead

#4. Nobody asked how you looked, just what you shot.

Sam Snead

#5. Keep close count of your nickels and dimes, stay away from whiskey, and never concede a putt.

Sam Snead

#6. I've gotten rid of the yips four times but they hang in there. You know those two-foot downhill putts with a break? I'd rather see a rattlesnake.

Sam Snead

#7. Golf is played with the arms.

Sam Snead

#8. If I had cleared the trees and drove the green, it would've been a great shot.

Sam Snead

#9. I give the ball some sweet talk. I tell it that this isn't going to hurt a bit. I'm a friend and all I'm going to do is give it a nice little ride.

Sam Snead

#10. No matter what happens - never give up a hole ... In tossing in your cards after a bad beginning you also undermine your whole game, because to quit between tee and green is more habit-forming than drinking a highball before breakfast.

Sam Snead

#11. You have more potential than you think.

Sam Snead

#12. Golf got complicated when I had to wear shoes and begin thinking about what I was doing.

Sam Snead

#13. If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork the way they do a golf club, they'd starve to death.

Sam Snead

#14. Most people who play golf have one big trouble: they think too much. To get any real mileage out of this game you've got to sit on your imagination.

Sam Snead

#15. You can't go into a shop and buy a good game of golf.

Sam Snead

#16. Never let up. The more you can win by, the more doubts you put in the other players' minds the next time out.

Sam Snead

#17. The only thing I fear on a golf course is lightning ... and Ben Hogan.

Sam Snead

#18. Just have a Coke or something and watch the boys go past.

Sam Snead

#19. To win,you must have both talent an desire- but desire first.

Sam Snead

#20. Practice puts brains in your muscles.

Sam Snead

#21. What did I want with prestige? The British Open paid the winner $600 in American money. A man would have to be two hundred years old at that rate to retire from golf.

Sam Snead

#22. When I swing at a golf ball right, my mind is blank and my body is loose as a goose.

Sam Snead

#23. To be consistently effective, you must put a certain distance between yourself and what happens to you on the golf course. This is not indifference, it's detachment.

Sam Snead

#24. Practice your swing until it becomes a habit of mind and muscle.

Sam Snead

#25. Until you play it, St. Andrews looks like the sort of real estate you couldn't give away.

Sam Snead

#26. A bad putter is like a bad apple in a barrel. First, it turns your chipping game sour. Then it begins to eat into your irons and finally it just cleans the head off your driver.

Sam Snead

#27. Correct one fault at a time. Concentrate on the one fault you want to overcome.

Sam Snead

#28. Grip the club as if you were holding a baby bird.

Sam Snead

#29. Over the years I've studied the habits of golfers. I know what to look for. Watch their eyes. Fear shows up when there is an enlargement of the pupils. Big pupils lead to big scores.

Sam Snead

#30. I looked like a monkey trying to wrestle a football.

Sam Snead

#31. I'd say that golf is about 75% mental. If your state of mind gets out of kilter, you're worse off than a tomcat floating on a log.

Sam Snead

#32. I shot a wild elephant in Africa thirty yards from me, and it didn't hit the ground until it was right at my feet. I wasn't a bit scared. But a four foot putt scares me to death.

Sam Snead

#33. Make the basic shot-making decision early, clearly and firmly, and then ritualize all the necessary acts of preparation.

Sam Snead

#34. In golf, as in life, you get out of it what you put into it.

Sam Snead

#35. Golf course architects make me sick. They can't play themselves, so they rig the courses so nobody else can play either.

Sam Snead

#36. That little white ball is always staring back at you, daring you to make a mistake.

Sam Snead

#37. Those who go along get along.

Sam Snead

#38. The only place that's holier than St. Andrews is Westminster Abbey.

Sam Snead

#39. The mark of a great player is in his ability to come back. The great champions have all come back from defeat.

Sam Snead

#40. You've just one problem. You stand too close to the ball after you've hit it.

Sam Snead

#41. Of all the hazards, fear is the worst.

Sam Snead

#42. The fact that Slammin' Sammy couldn't win the Open made it all the more valuable for the players that did win. Gave it a special quality. I'd say a part of the sheen on that trophy comes from my sweat.

Sam Snead

#43. The fairways were so narrow you had to walk down them single file.

Sam Snead

#44. When I ask you what club to use, look the other way and don't answer.

Sam Snead

#45. What abandoned course is that?

Sam Snead

#46. Good golfing temperament falls between taking it with a grin or shrug and throwing a fit.

Sam Snead

#47. There is an old saying: if a man comes home with sand in his cuffs and cockleburs in his pants, don't ask him what he shot.

Sam Snead

#48. These greens are so fast I have to hold my putter over the ball and hit it with the shadow.

Sam Snead

#49. Of the mental hazards, being scared is the worst. When you get scared, you get tense.

Sam Snead

#50. Don't just play your way around the course. Think your way around way around the course.

Sam Snead

#51. 'You know Bobby, when I was your age I'd drive the ball right over those trees at the corner.' Feeling challenged Mr. Cole hit a big driver right into those big trees. Snead then said 'Of course, when I was your age, those trees were only 10 feet high.'

Sam Snead

#52. Thinking instead of acting is the number one golf disease.

Sam Snead

#53. I was a better player at 50 than I was at 30.

Sam Snead

#54. If I could have shot 69 in the last round every time, I would have won nine U.S. Opens. Nine!

Sam Snead

#55. But you don't have to go up in the stands and play your foul balls. I do.

Sam Snead

#56. Playing golf is like eating. It's something which has to come naturally.

Sam Snead

#57. I've been on some fairways that are as good as the greens we putted on back then. We had crab grass. I remember one green where I putted through ants.

Sam Snead

#58. The only reason I ever played golf in the first place was so I could afford to hunt and fish.

Sam Snead

#59. Golf tip: Lay off for three weeks and then quit for good.

Sam Snead

#60. I hope I'll never get too old to want to take part in this event, and I don't think I will ever age that much.

Sam Snead