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Golf Life Lessons (Quotes)


GlasgowsGreen
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Courtesy of http://golflifelessons.com/

Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots - but you have to play the ball where it lies.
- Bobby Jones

One of the most fascinating things about golf is how it reflects the cycle of life. No matter what you shoot - the next day you have to go back to the first tee and begin all over again and make yourself into something.
- Peter Jacobsen

Bobby Jones Golf Quotes

No-one will ever have golf under his thumb. No round ever will be so good it could not have been better. Perhaps this is why golf is the greatest of games. You are not playing a human adversary; you are playing a game. You are playing old man par.
- Bobby Jones

You swing your best when you have the fewest things to think about.
- Bobby Jones

Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots - but you have to play the ball where it lies.
- Bobby Jones

It is nevertheless a game of considerable passion, either of the explosive type, or that which burns inwardly and sears the soul.
- Bobby Jones

A leading difficulty with the average player is that he totally misunderstands what is meant by concentration. He may think he is concentrating hard when he is merely worrying.
- Bobby Jones

I never learned anything from a match that I won.
- Bobby Jones

Golf is assuredly a mystifying game. It would seem that if a person has hit a golf ball correctly a thousand times, he should be able to duplicate the performance at will. But such is certainly not the case.
- Bobby Jones

Many shots are spoiled at the last instant by efforts to add a few more yards.
- Bobby Jones

The secret of golf is to turn three shots into two.
- Bobby Jones

The best exercise for golfers is golfing.
- Bobby Jones

The moment the average golfer attempts to play from long grass or a bunker or from a difficult lie of any kind, he becomes a digger instead of a swinger.
- Bobby Jones

Golf is said to be a humbling game, but it is surprising how many people are either not aware of their weaknesses or else reckless of consequences.
- Bobby Jones

Rhythm and timing are the two things which we all must have, yet no one knows how to teach either.
- Bobby Jones

You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank as to praise him for playing by the rules.
- Bobby Jones

One reason golf is such an exasperating game is that a thing we learned is so easily forgotten, and we find ourselves struggling year after year with faults we had discovered and corrected time and again.
- Bobby Jones

In order to win, you must play your best golf when you need it most, and play your sloppy stuff when you can afford it. I shall not attempt to explain how you achieve this happy timing.
- Bobby Jones

I get as much fun as the next man from whaling the ball as hard as I can and catching it squarely on the button. But from sad experience I learned not to try this in a round that meant anything.
- Bobby Jones

I always like to see a person stand up to a golf ball as though he were perfectly at home in its presence.
- Bobby Jones

The best exercise for golfers is golfing.
- Bobby Jones

Arnold Palmer Golf Quotes

How did I make a twelve on a par five hole? It's simple. I missed a four-foot putt for an eleven.
- Arnold Palmer

It's a funny thing, the more I practice the luckier I get.
- Arnold Palmer

I never rooted against an opponent, but I never rooted for him either.
- Arnold Palmer

I've always made a total effort, even when the odds seemed entirely against me. I never quit trying; I never felt that i didn't have a chance to win.
- Arnold Palmer

What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive.
- Arnold Palmer

Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening - and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.
- Arnold Palmer

Concentration comes out of a combination of confidence and hunger.
- Arnold Palmer

Jack Nicklaus Golf Quotes

Don't be too proud to take a lesson.  I'm not.
- Jack Nicklaus

Nobody ever remembers who finished second at anything.
- Jack Nicklaus

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

Professional golf is the only sport where, if you win 20 percent of the time, you're the best.
- Jack Nicklaus

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

A perfectly straight shot with a big club is a fluke.
- Jack Nicklaus

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

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

Keeping the head still is golf's one universal, unarguable fundamental.
- Jack Nicklaus

When you lip out several putts in a row, you should never think that means that you're putting well. When you're putting well, the only question is what part of the hole it's going to fall in, not if it's going in.
- Jack Nicklaus

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

Ben Hogan Golf Quotes

As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.
- Ben Hogan

Like most professional golfers, I have a tendency to remember my poor shots a shade more vividly than the good ones.
- Ben Hogan

I don't like the glamour. I just like the game.
- Ben Hogan

I play with friends, but we don't play friendly games.
- Ben Hogan

This is a game of misses. The guy who misses the best is going to win.
- Ben Hogan

A shot that goes in the cup is pure luck, but a shot to within two feet of the flag is skill.
- Ben Hogan

I never played a round when I didn't learn something new about the game.
- Ben Hogan

I have found the game to be, in all factualness, a universal language wherever I traveled at home or abroad.
- Ben Hogan

All other things being equal, greens break to the west.
- Ben Hogan

The most important shot in golf is the next one.
- Ben Hogan

Sam Snead Golf Quotes

Forget your opponents; always play against par.
- Sam Snead

Nobody asked how you looked, just what you shot.
- Sam Snead

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

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

Of all the hazards, fear is the worst.
- Sam Snead

Lee Trevino Golf Quotes

There is no such thning as a natural touch. touch is something you create by hitting millions of golf balls.
- Lee Trevino

Show me a golfer who doesn't have a mean streak, and I'll show you a weak competitor.
- Lee Trevino

Putts get real difficult the day they hand out the money.
- Lee Trevino

You don't know what pressure is until you play for five bucks with only two bucks in your pocket.
- Lee Trevino

Harry Vardon Golf Quotes

For this game you need, above all things, to be in a tranquil frame of mind.
- Harry Vardon

Don't play too much golf. Two rounds a day are plenty.
- Harry Vardon

Never concede the putt that beats you.
- Harry Vardon

Dr. Bob Rotella Golf Quotes

Golf is about how well you accept, respond to, and score with your misses much more so than it is a game of your perfect shots.
- Dr Bob Rotella

A golfer has to train his swing on the practice tee, then trust it on the course.
- Dr Bob Rotella

Hit the shot you know you can hit, not the one you think you should.
- Dr. Bob Rotella

Miscelaneous Golf Quotes

Remember that someone, somewhere, is practicing, and when you meet him he will win.
- Edward Macauley


Every shot counts.  The three-foot putt is as important as the 300-yard drive.
- Henry Cotton

A lot of guys who have have never choked, have never been in the position to do so.
- Tom Watson

Victory is everything. You can spend the money, but you can never spend the memories.
- Ken Venturi

Mulligan: invented by an Irishman who wanted to hit one more twenty yard grounder.
- Jim Bishop

Why am I using a new putter? Because the last one didn't float too well.
- Craig Stadler

You know what they say about big hitters...the woods are full of them.
- Jimmy Demaret

The mind messes up more shots than the body.
- Tommy Bolt

It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
- Mark Twain

Golf is a science, the study of a lifetime, in which you can exhaust yourself but never your subject.
- David Forgan

Golf is golf. You hit the ball, you go find it. Then you hit it again.
- Lon Hinkle

One of the most fascinating things about golf is how it reflects the cycle of life. No matter what you shoot - the next day you have to go back to the first tee and begin all over again and make yourself into something.
- Peter Jacobsen

Golf is the loneliest sport. You're completely alone with every conceivable opportunity to defeat yourself. Golf brings out your assets and liabilities as a person. The longer you play, the more certain you are that a man's performance is the outward manifestation of who, in his heart, he really thinks he is.
- Hale Irwin

Golf is like a chain. You always have to work on the weakest links.
- George Archer

Golf is a game you can never get too good at. You can improve, but you can never get to where you master the game.
- Gay Brewer

Golf is the only sport I know of where a player pays for every mistake. A man can muff a serve in tennis, miss a strike in baseball, or throw an incomplete pass in football and still have another chance to square himself. In golf, every swing counts against you.
- Lloyd Mangrum

Golf is a compromise between what your ego wants you to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.
- Bruce Crampton

Golf isn't a game it's a choice that one makes with one's life.
- Charles Rosin

Golf is very healthy; it is better to swat pills than to swallow them.
- Ted Osborne

The woods are full of long drivers.
- Harvey Penick

Every golfer scores better when he learns his capabilities.
- Tommy Armour

You must work very hard to become a natural golfer.
- Gary Player

If you try to fight the course, it will beat you.
- Lou Graham

The mind messes up more shots than the body.
-Tommy Bolt

Be decisive. A wrong decision is generally less disastrous than indecision.
- Bernhard Langer

Keep your sense of humor. There's enough stress in the rest of your life not to let bad shots ruin a game you're supposed to enjoy.
- Amy Alcott

Hitting the ball is the fun part of it, but the fewer times you hit the ball the more fun you have.
- Lou Graham

Most people play a fair game of golf - if you watch them.
- Joey Adams

For this game you need, above all things, to be in a tranquil frame of mind.
- Harry Vardon

A routine is not a routine if you have to think about it.
- Davis Love Jr.

A man who can putt is a match for anyone.
- Willie Park

The better you putt, the bolder you play.
- Don January

Missing a short putt does not mean you have to hit your next drive out of bounds.
- Henry Cotton

Whatever anyone may care to say about golf, at least one thing is mercifully certain, namely it is a voluntary affair.
- Henry Longhurst

The proper score for a businessman golfer is 90. If he is better than that he is neglecting his business. If he's worse, he's neglecting his golf.
- St Andrews Rotary Club Member

I just try to put it on the fairway, then the green and not three putt.
- Peter Thompson

I've heard people say putting is 50 percent technique and 50 percent mental. I really believe it is 50 percent technique and 90 percent positive thinking, see, but that adds up to 140 percent, which is why nobody is 100 percent sure how to putt.
- Chi Chi Rodriguez

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

When a putter is waiting his turn to hole out a putt of one or two feet in length, on which the match hangs at the last hole, it is of vital importance that he think of nothing. At this supreme moment he ought to fill his mind with vacancy. He must not even allow himself the consolation of religion.
- Sir Walter Simpson (The Art of Golf)

The better you putt, the bolder you play.
- Don January

A tap-in is a putt that is short enough to be missed one-handed.
- Henry Beard

I have come to think that a person grows in his regard for the rules as he improves his game. The best players come to love golf so much they hate to see it violated in any way.
- Michael Murphy (extract from 'Golf in the Kingdom')

In golf, a player can step and mar the line of his adversary's putt. A player can also hit his adversary or his caddie intentionally with his ball and claim the hole - but it isn't usually done.
- Charles B. Macdonald (1898)

Forget the last shot. It takes so long to accept that you can't always replicate your swing. The only thing you can control is your attitude toward the next shot.
- Mark McCumber

Out here, it's just you and the ball.
- Mike Weir

I've spent most of my life golfing - the rest I've just wasted.
- Unknown

A "gimme" can best be defined as an agreement between two golfers, neither of whom can putt very well.
- Unknown

"The meek may inherit the the earth, but they'll never reach the green in two."

-graham allebaugh

Miscelaneous Golf Quotes - Source Unknown
(If you know who said, please tell us know and we'll give them credit)

Don't buy a putter until you've had a chance to throw it.

Never try to keep more than 300 separate thoughts in your mind during your swing.

When your shot has to carry over a water hazard, you can either hit one more club or two more balls.

If you're afraid a full shot might reach the green while the foursome ahead of you is still putting out, you have two options: you can immediately shank a lay-up or you can wait until the green is clear and top a ball halfway there.

The less skilled the player, the more likely he is to share his ideas about the golf swing.

No matter how bad you are playing, it is always possible to play worse.

The inevitable result of any golf lesson is the instant elimination of the one critical unconscious motion that allowed you to compensate for all of your many other errors

Everyone replaces his divot after a perfect approach shot.

A golf match is a test of your skill against your opponents' luck.

It is surprisingly easy to hole a fifty foot putt . For a 10.

Counting on your opponent to inform you when he breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of his own haircut.

Nonchalant putts count the same as chalant putts

It's not a gimme if you're still away.

The shortest distance between any two points on a golf course is a straight line that passes directly through the center of a very large tree.

You can hit a two acre fairway 10% of the time and a two inch branch 90% of the time.

If you really want to get better at golf, go back and take it up at a much earlier age.

Since bad shots come in groups of three, a fourth bad shot is actually the beginning of the next group of three.

When you look up, causing an awful shot, you will always look down again at exactly the moment when you ought to start watching the ball if you ever want to see it again.

Every time a golfer makes a birdie, he must subsequently make two triple bogeys to restore the fundamental equilibrium of the universe.

If you want to hit a 7 iron as far as Tiger Woods does, simply try to lay up just short of a water hazard.

To calculate the speed of a player's downswing, multiply the speed of his back-swing by his handicap; i.e., back-swing 20 mph, handicap 15, downswing = 300 mph.

There are two things you can learn by stopping your back-swing at the top and checking the position of your hands: how many hands you have, and which one is wearing the glove.

Hazards attract; fairways repel.

A ball you can see in the rough from 50 yards away is not yours.

If there is a ball on the fringe and a ball in the bunker, your ball is in the bunker. If both balls are in the bunker, yours is in the footprint

It's easier to get up at 6:00 AM to play golf than at 10:00 to mow the yard

A good drive on the 18th hole has stopped many a golfer from giving up the game.

Golf is the perfect thing to do on Sunday because you always end up having to pray a lot.

A good golf partner is one who's always slightly worse than you are....that's why I get so many calls to play with friends.

If there's a storm rolling in, you'll be having the game of your life.

Golf balls are like eggs. They're white. They're sold by the dozen. And you need to buy fresh ones each week.

It's amazing how a golfer who never helps out around the house will replace his divots, repair his ball marks, and rake his sand traps.

If your opponent has trouble remembering whether he shot a six or a seven, he probably shot an eight (or worse).

It takes longer to learn to be a good golfer than it does to become a brain surgeon. On the other hand, you don't get to ride around on a cart, drink beer, eat hot dogs and fart if you are performing Brain Surgery !!!!

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"Son, there are two things you should never talk about--your golf game and your fantasy football team.  Nobody cares."  -- A friend's new father-in-law to the friend.

Dan

:tmade: R11s 10.5*, Adila RIP Phenom 60g Stiff
:ping: G20 3W
:callaway: Diablo 3H
:ping:
i20 4-U, KBS Tour Stiff
:vokey: Vokey SM4 54.14 
:vokey: Vokey :) 58.11

:scotty_cameron: Newport 2
:sunmountain: Four 5

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Awards, Achievements, and Accolades

"You can probably swing a little faster if you try hard enough.”

“… the more I practice, the luckier I get.”

“I try to hit it on the third groove.”

“You're away.”

-Ben Hogan

Nate

:pxg:(10.5) :benhogan:(4W):titleist:U500(3UI) :benhogan: Icon(4-PW) :edel:(52/58)

:odyssey:Putter :snell: MTB Black  

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Awards, Achievements, and Accolades

Great compilation OP.

My all time favorite is the second half of the Bobby Jones quote:

"Many golfers think they're concentrating when they're merely worrying."

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What's your favourite?

Mine is;

'A "gimme" can best be defined as an agreement between two golfers, neither of whom can putt very well." :-)

Good, good.

RiCK

(Play it again, Sam)

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Awards, Achievements, and Accolades

I don't know golf quotes but there are a few others I really like:

Fans don't boo nobodies.  ---  Reggie Jackson

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.  ---  Eleanor Roosevelt

A nation trying to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to pull himself up by the handles.  ---  Winston Churchill

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  • 3 months later...
Not really about golf but written about a golfer. "Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body. But rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming...Wow, what a ride!" Written about golfer Harvie Ward by a friend after his death. From the book The Match by Mark Frost.
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Note: This thread is 3736 days old. We appreciate that you found this thread instead of starting a new one, but if you plan to post here please make sure it's still relevant. If not, please start a new topic. Thank you!

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