Top 100 Nicklaus Quotes
#1. It's hard not to play golf that's up to Jack Nicklaus standards when you are Jack Nicklaus.
Jack Nicklaus
#2. Shoot eagles on the Jack Nicklaus course,
Porsche with the triple exhaust,
Seats soft like a midget's cough ...
Action Bronson
#3. If Jack Nicklaus can win the Masters at 46, I can win the Kentucky Derby at 54.
Bill Shoemaker
#4. Like all terrible golfers, Dr. Remond Courtney believed that nothing was too extravagant for his game. He wore Arnold Palmer sweaters and Tom Watson spikes, and carried a full set of Jack Nicklaus MacGregors, including a six-wood that the Golden Bear himself couldn't hit if his life depended on it.
Carl Hiaasen
#5. Some things cannont possibly happen, because they are both too improbable and too perfect. The U.S. hockey team cannot beat the Russians in the 1980 Olympics. Jack Nicklaus cannot shoot 65 to win the Masters at age forty-six. Nothing else comes immediately to mind.
Thomas Boswell
#6. Some golfers fantasize about playing in a foursome with Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Sam Snead. The way I hit I'd rather play in a foursome with Helen Keller, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder.
Bruce Lansky
#7. I'm not as far along as Jack Nicklaus was at this age, but I'm trying.
Tiger Woods
#8. Jack Nicklaus liked to curve the ball by opening or closing the clubface at address. I never felt I was good enough to do it his way. I didn't like changing my swing path, either, which some guys do.
Lee Trevino
#9. Nicklaus plays a kind of golf with which I am not familiar.
Bobby Jones
#10. I'm not getting into a public debate with Jack Nicklaus.
Tim Finchem
#11. The U.S. won the majors 29-11 in the 1980s. That's when Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus were carrying the ball, and when Seve Ballesteros was becoming a Brit in the minds of English and Scottish journalists.
Dan Jenkins
#12. I don't look so much for tips. But when they interview a Nicklaus or a Palmer, I'm all ears. I listen to guys who have done it, been successful for years.
Pete Sampras
#13. When Nicklaus plays wells well, he wins. When he plays badly, he finishes second. When he plays terribly, he finishes third.
Johnny Miller
#14. God said to Faldo, as He once said to Nicklaus, "You will have the skills like no other." Then he whispered to Ballesteros, as he whispered to Palmer, "But they will love you more."
Tom Callahan
#15. If you've ever driven across Texas, you know how different one area of the state can be from another. Take El Paso. It looks as much like Dallas as I look like Jack Nicklaus
Lee Trevino
#17. Nobody ever heard Jack Nicklaus say 'I don't know' about anything.
Johnny Miller
#18. The only equivalent plunge from genius I could think of was Ernest Hemmingway's tragic loss of ability to write. Hemmingway got up one morning and shot himself. Nicklaus got up the next morning and shot 66.
Ian Wooldridge
#19. Somewhere along the line I'll be recognized as one of the top players in the Nicklaus era. That's all I want to be remembered for.
Lee Trevino
#20. The first time I ever saw Arnold Palmer, I said, There's a star. The first time I saw Jack Nicklaus, I said, Superstar. I feel the same way about Tiger Woods.
Gary Player
#21. All my life I wanted to play golf like Jack Nicklaus, and now I do.
Paul Harvey
#22. Jack Nicklaus is the greatest winner I've ever seen.
Dan Jenkins
#23. If Jack Nicklaus had to play my tee shots, he couldn't break 80. He'd be a pharmacist with a string of drugstores in Ohio.
Lee Trevino
#24. It is a big adjustment but I've always loved that old saying of Jack Nicklaus: 'I retired from golf to go to work.' That sums it up for me.
Greg Rusedski
#25. If you want to put golf back on the front pages again, and you don't have a Bobby Jones or a Francis Ouimet handy, here's what you do: You send an aging Jack Nicklaus out in the last round of the Masters and let him kill more foreigners than a general named Eisenhower.
Dan Jenkins
#26. The game of golf was bigger than Jack Nicklaus when Jack was dominating the game.
Tim Finchem
#27. Every immortal except Jack Nicklaus has hit a wall and stopped making putts he had to make in order to win. Jack did it for 20 years.
Dan Jenkins
#28. Jack Nicklaus is playing an entirely different game, and one which I'm not even familiar with.
Bobby Jones
#29. Then Lee Trevino and Jack Nicklaus come in. I'll caddie for Jack.
Chi Chi Rodriguez
#30. I think you've all heard my story about my daughter and how we felt Children's Hospital saved her life when she was less than a year old. I won't go through all of the details of that.
Jack Nicklaus
#31. If somebody says they don't watch the leaderboard, I don't buy that, I'm sorry. Because you've got to know where you are to know how to play.
Jack Nicklaus
#32. 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
#33. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#34. 1960, I was 20 years old, and I was leading the U.S. Open. Now, I wasn't leading by several strokes, but I was leading the U.S. Open and playing with Ben Hogan, had a very good chance to win, nine holes to go, I was leading. I was still leading with six holes to play.
Jack Nicklaus
#35. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#36. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#37. You can win tournaments when you're mechanical, but golf is a game of emotion and adjustment. If you're not aware of what's happening to your mind and your body when you're playing, you'll never be able to be the very best you can be.
Jack Nicklaus
#38. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#39. Grand Haven will challenge the skilled player yet, because of some width to the holes, it also will be a fun course that the average player can enjoy.
Jack Nicklaus
#40. Essentially, he has been retired since he was 21.
Jack Nicklaus
#41. I don't think you ever will yourself to win. I think you prepare yourself the best you can, get yourself in the best mindset you can get in, and go after it.
Jack Nicklaus
#42. That "I don't give a darn" attitude is probably why I've shot so many good final rounds over the years when I started the day a few shots behind with nothing to lose ... and maybe that's why I've shot so many bad last rounds when I was ahead and knew I couldn't afford a mistake.
Jack Nicklaus
#43. Pressure is what you live for ... if you are going to be successful in life, you're going to have pressure.
Jack Nicklaus
#44. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#45. Golf is game of respect and sportsmanship; we have to respect its traditions and its rules.
Jack Nicklaus
#46. Oakmont is probably the premier - Oakmont and Augusta National are probably the top two set of greens in the country.
Jack Nicklaus
#48. Learn the fundamentals of the game and stick to them. Band-Aid remedies never last.
Jack Nicklaus
#49. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#50. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#51. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#52. You have to love something and have a passion for it to be disciplined. My commitment was purely to golf
Jack Nicklaus
#53. I like trying to win. That's what golf is all about.
Jack Nicklaus
#54. Golfers have a tendency to be very masochistic. They like to punish themselves for some reason. A lot of them like tough courses.
Jack Nicklaus
#55. Nobody ever remembers who finished second at anything.
Jack Nicklaus
#56. I always look to see what Arnold [Palmer] shot; it's a habit. We will always compete against each other.
Jack Nicklaus
#57. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#58. There's more to be learned here [St. Andrews] about course design than anywhere. Collection bunkers, false fronts, bump shots. The fundamentals of design became fundamental because of what's here. And it happened accidentally. Or maybe accidentally on purpose.
Jack Nicklaus
#59. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#61. You don't think anything about age when you're playing [golf]. I mean, why would you ever think about that.
Jack Nicklaus
#62. Confidence is believing in your own ability, knowing what you have to do to win. My confidence was developed through preparation.
Jack Nicklaus
#63. I never thought about being No. 1. I just kept trying to be No. 1.
Jack Nicklaus
#64. There are no maladies in my golf game. My golf game stinks.
Jack Nicklaus
#65. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#66. One of the worst mistakes you can make in golf is trying to force the game.
Jack Nicklaus
#67. I don't believe in philosophies. I believe in fundamentals.
Jack Nicklaus
#68. The importance of my legacy is not the golf course, it's what my life is, and what my life is intended to be. The game of golf is a game. My family is my life.
Jack Nicklaus
#69. At a certain point in the [golf] tournament, it becomes a match play event and becomes a match play event against who is on the leaderboard, so you have to know who is there to do what you're going to try to do.
Jack Nicklaus
#70. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#71. The best way to cope with trouble is to stay out of it as much as possible.
Jack Nicklaus
#72. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#73. As long as I'm prepared, I always expect to win.
Jack Nicklaus
#74. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#75. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#76. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#77. Golf really excites me only when the course is difficult and challenging. I love competing. The pressure of competition against fine holes and fine players makes me feel very much alive.
Jack Nicklaus
#78. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#79. It takes hundreds of good golf shots to gain confidence, but only one bad one to lose it.
Jack Nicklaus
#80. I've been fortunate over my career to make a little history on the 16th hole at Augusta National.
Jack Nicklaus
#81. Temper is the one thing you can't get rid of by losing it.
Jack Nicklaus
#82. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#83. Professional golf is the only sport where, if you win 20% of the time, you're the best.
Jack Nicklaus
#84. Confidence is when you stand over a shot and know you're going to make it because you've done it time and time again.
Jack Nicklaus
#86. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#87. Talent isn't as important as the work and dedication necessary to become competent.
Jack Nicklaus
#88. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#89. I knew that if I kept the pressure on and didn't do anything stupid I would probably win.
Jack Nicklaus
#91. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#92. I love the golf courses because it brought the best out of me. It made me prepare, made me work at it, made me do the things I needed to do to be better, and that's what I loved about USGA events. If you couldn't handle it, then you got beat, and that's OK.
Jack Nicklaus
#93. And, of course, I'm constantly energized by designing courses around the world.
Jack Nicklaus
#94. Any golfer worth his salt has to cross the sea and try to win the British Open.
Jack Nicklaus
#95. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#96. I don't really have a problem saying good-bye to things. All things come to an end.
Jack Nicklaus
#97. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
#98. My ability to concentrate and work toward that goal has been my greatest asset.
Jack Nicklaus
#100. 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.
Jack Nicklaus
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
