| Anonymous |
"Drive for show, Putt for dough, Shank for comic relief." |
| Anonymous |
"Golf is a game where the ball lies poorly, and the players well." |
| Anonymous |
"Real golfers know how to count over five, when they have a bad hole." |
| Anonymous |
"Real golfers don't miss putts, they get robbed." |
| Anonymous |
"In golf as in life, it's the follow through that makes the difference." |
| Anonymous |
"Real golfers don't cry when they line up their fourth putt." |
| Anonymous |
"If there is any larceny in man, golf will bring it out." |
| Anonymous |
"Golf is an easy game...It’s just hard to play." |
| Anonymous |
"If it goes right, it’s a slice. If it goes left, it’s a hook. If it goes straight, it’s a miracle." |
| Anonymous |
"Real golfers have two handicaps: one for bragging and one for betting." |
| Hank Aaron |
"It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course." |
| Bob Allen |
"The fun you get from golf is in direct ratio to the effort you don’t put into it." |
| Peter Alliss |
"..corr blimey O’Reilly" - astounded by a put or shot at the British Open |
| George Archer |
"If it weren't for golf, I'd probably be a caddie today."-apparently with help from Yogi Berra |
| Thomas Armour |
"Golf is an awkward set of bodily contortions designed to produce a graceful result." |
| Tommy Armour |
"In other games you get another chance. In baseball you get three cracks at it; in tennis you lose only one point. But in golf the loss of one shot has been responsible for the loss of heart." |
| Paul Azinger |
"I don’t enjoy playing video golf because there is nothing to throw." |
| Stephen Baker |
"A professional will tell you the amount of flex you need in the shaft of your club. The more the flex, the more strength you will need to break the thing over your knees." |
| Stephen Baker |
"If you don’t succeed at first, don’t despair. Remember, it takes time to learn to play golf; most players spend their entire lifetime finding out about the game before they give up." |
| Seve Ballesteros |
"I’d like to see the fairways more narrow. Then everybody would have to play from the rough, not just me." |
| Henry Beard |
"The mind messes up more shots than the body."A ball will always come to rest halfway down a hill, unless there is sand or water at the bottom. |
| Henry Beard & Roy McKie |
"Follow-through: The part of the swing that takes place after the ball has been hit, but before the club has been thrown." |
| Becker |
"In Africa some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground with clubs and uttering spine chilling cries. Anthropologists call this a form of self expression. In America we call it golf." |
| Fred Beck |
"If you pick up a golfer and hold it close to your ear, like a conch shell, and listen- you will hear an alibi." |
| Jack Benny |
"Give me golf clubs, fresh air and a beautiful partner ...and you can keep the clubs and the fresh air." |
| Yogi Berra |
"Ninety percent of putts that are short don't go in." |
| Yogi Berra |
"You mean right now?"-when asked by a playing partner if he knew what time it was. |
| Jim Bishop |
"Gimme: An agreement between two losers who can’t putt." |
| Jim Bishop |
"Mulligan: invented by an Irishman who wanted to hit one more twenty yard grounder." |
| Phil Blackmar |
"I catch fish in water that is more shallow than the rough here." |
| Early "Red" Blaik |
"Golf has humbled, humiliated, and just about licked all the great athletes I ever knew that tried it." |
| Al Bolska |
"Have you ever notices what golf spells backwards?" |
| Tommy Bolt |
"Golf is a game where guts and blind devotion will always net you absolutely nothing but an ulcer." |
| Tommy Bolt |
"Always throw your clubs ahead of you. That way you don’t have to waste energy going back to pick them up." |
| Tommy Bolt |
"If you’re going to throw a club, it is important to throw it ahead of you, down the fairway, so you don’t have to waste energy going back to pick it up." |
| Tommy Bolt |
"The biggest liar in the world is the golfer who claims that he plays the game merely for exercise." |
| Tommy Bolt |
"The mind messes up more shots than the body." |
Thomas Boswell
|
"I may be the only golfer never to have broken a single putter; if you don’t count the one I twisted and threw into a bush." |
| Colin Bowles |
"The fundamental problem with golf is that every so often, no matter how lacking you may be in the essential virtues required of a steady player, the odds are that one day you will hit the ball straight, hard, and out of sight. This is the essential frustration of this excruciating sport. For when you've done it once, you make the fundamental error of asking yourself why you can't do this all the time. The answer to this question is simple: the first time was a fluke." |
| Earl Lee Boyd |
"Bowling is a good chance to drink beer spoiled" |
| Earl Lee Boyd |
"Tennis is a good jumping around in one place spoiled." |
| Earl Lee Boyd |
"Baseball is another good chance to drink beer spoiled" |
| Earl Lee Boyd |
"Football is a good rumble spoiled" |
| Earl Lee Boyd |
"Wrestling is good homosexual sex spoiled." |
| Dick Brooks |
"A golf ball simply cannot find the hold by itself. Even if it could, the ball would never do so willingly, after the hatred and hammering you’ve heaped on it to get it to the green." |
| Robert Browning |
"There are three ways of learning golf: by study, which is the most wearisome; by imitation, which is the most fallacious; and by experience, which is the most bitter." |
| Don Carter |
"One of the advantages bowling has over golf is that you seldom lose a bowling ball"- pro bowler |
| Billy Casper |
"Like a lot of fellows on the Senior Tour, I have a furniture problem. My chest has fallen into my drawers." |
| Gerry Cheevers |
"In golf I’m one under; one under a tree, one under a rock, and one under a bush…." |
| Don Christopher |
"When he gets the ball into a tough place, that’s when he’s most relaxed. I think it’s because he has so much experience at it." -(Jack Lemmon’s Caddie) |
| Winston Churchill |
"Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into a even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose." |
| James Clark |
"Playing golf is just like going to a strip club. You’re all revved up, ready to go. But three hours later, you’re depressed, plastered, and most of your balls are missing." |
| Alice Cooper |
"Every rock’n’roll band I know, guys with long hair and tattoos, plays golf now." |
| Ben Crenshaw |
"Golf is the hardest game in the world. There is no way you can ever get it. Just when you think you do, the game jumps up and puts you in your place" |
| Arnold Daly |
"Golf is like a love affair: If you don't take it seriously, it's not fun; if you do take it seriously, it breaks your heart." |
| Bernard Darwin |
"Golf is not a funeral, although both can be very sad affairs." |
| Jimmy Demaret |
"Golf is based on honesty, where else would you admit to a seven on a par three?" |
| Jimmy Demaret |
"Golf and sex are about the only things you can enjoy without being good at it." |
| Jimmy Demaret |
"You know what they say about big hitters...the woods are full of them." |
| Jimmy Demaret |
"The players themselves can be classified into two groups - the attractions and the entry fees." |
| Gardner Dickinson |
"They say golf is like life, but don’t believe them. It’s more complicated than that." |
| Phyllis Diller |
"The reason the golf pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can’t see him laughing." |
| Peter Dobereiner |
"Half of golf is fun; the other half is putting." |
| George Duncan |
"The right way to play golf is to go up and hit the bloody thing." |
| Dwight D. Eisenhower |
"How has retirement affected my golf game? A lot more people beat me now." |
| Ray Floyd |
"If you travel first class, you think first class and you are more likely to play first class." |
| Bertie Forbes |
"Golf is an ideal diversion, but a ruinous disease." |
| Gerald Ford |
"I know I’m getting better at golf because I’m hitting fewer spectators." |
| Ed Furgol |
" Everybody has two swings-a beautiful practice swing and the choked-up one with with which they hit the ball. So it wouldn’t do either of us a damned bit of good to look at your practice swing." |
| Cindy Garner |
"A woman I know is engaged to a real golf nut. They are supposed to get married next Saturday…but only if it rains." |
| Jean Giraudoux |
"A golf course is the epitome of all that is purely transitory in the universe, a space not to dwell in, but to get over as quickly as possible." |
| Dr. Irving I. Gladstone |
"Golf is a game of expletives not deleted." |
| Jackie Gleason |
"Obviously a deer on the fairway has seen you tee off before and knows that the safest place to be when you play is right down the middle." |
| Billy Graham |
"Actually, the Lord answers my prayers everywhere except on the golf course." |
| Lou Graham |
"If you try to fight the course, it will beat you." |
| Lewis Grizzard |
"By the time a man can afford to lose a golf ball, he can’t hit it that far." |
| Milton Gross |
"Golf does strange things to other people, too. It makes liars out of honest men, cheats out of altruists, cowards out of brave men and fools out of everybody." |
| Buddy Hackett |
"I’ve had a good day when I don’t fall out of the cart." |
| Buddy Hackett |
"Your financial cost can best be figured out when you realize that if you were to devote the same time and energy to business instead of gold, you would be a millionaire in approximately six weeks." |
| Walter Hagen |
"What a shame to waste those great shots on the practice tee." |
| John Hallisey |
"My worst day on the golf course still beats my best day in the office." |
| Dutch Harrison |
"under an assumed name" -to a Pro-am hacker who asked how to paly his next shot. |
| Paul Harvey |
"Golf is a game in which you yell ‘fore’, shoot six and write down five." |
| Arnold Haultain |
"Golf is like faith: it is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." |
| Don Herold |
"Nobody ever looked up and saw a good shot." |
| Dave Hill |
"Golf is the hardest game in the world to play, and the easiest to cheat at." |
| Dave Hill |
"The golf swing is like sex. You can’t be thinking about the mechanics of the act while you are performing." |
| Dave Hill |
"My game is so bad I gotta hire three caddies- one to walk the left rough, one for the right, and one for the middle. And the one in the middle doesn’t have much to do." |
| Simon Hobday |
"Two balls in the water. By God, I’ve got a good mind to jump in and make it four!" |
| Ben Hogan |
"The only thing a golfer needs is more daylight." |
| Ben Hogan |
"Golf is not a game of good shots. It’s a game of bad shots." |
| Ben Hogan |
"I play with friends, but we don’t play friendly games." |
| Ben Hogan |
"As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round." |
| Ben Hogan |
"Relax? How can anybody relax and play golf? You have to grip the club don’t you?" |
| Bob Hope |
"If you watch a game, it’s fun. If you play it, it’s recreation. If you work at it, it’s golf." |
| Bob Hope |
"We have fifty-one golf courses in Palm Springs. He(Gerald Ford) never decides which course he will play until after the first tee shot...At least he can’t cheat on his score- because all you have to do is look back down the fairway and count the wounded." |
| Bob Hope |
"I’d give up golf if I didn’t have so many sweaters." |
| Bob Hope |
"Vice President Spiro Agnew can’t cheat on his score - because all you have to do is look back down the fairway and count the wounded." |
| Dan Jenkins |
"Always keep in mind that if God didn’t want a man to have mulligans, golf balls wouldn’t come three to a sleeve." |
| Lyndon B. Johnson |
"One lesson you better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on a golf curse and beat the President." |
| Samuel Johnson |
"Golf: A game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood." |
| Bobby Jones |
"Golf is a game that creates emotions that sometimes cannot be sustained with the club still in one hand." |
| Bobby Jones |
"It is nothing new or original to say that golf is played one stroke at a time. But it took me many years to realize it." |
| Bobby Jones |
"Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch course, the space between your ears." |
| Bobby Jones |
"Sometimes the game of golf is just too difficult to endure with a golf club in your hands."- on club throwing. |
| Deacon Jones |
"Golf is the worst drug in the world. You just keep coming back for more embarrassment." |
| Alex Karris |
"My best score ever was 103, but I've only been playing 15 years." |
| Bruce Lansky |
"What’s the point of washing off your ball when teeing off on a water hole?" |
| Bruce Lansky |
"My ex-wife has never broken 150. I wish she would stop telling people I taught her how to play golf." |
| Bruce Lansky |
"I used to go to the driving range to practice driving without slicing. Now I go to the driving range to practice slicing without swearing." |
| Bruce Lansky |
"I'll always remember the day I broke ninety. I had a few beers in the clubhouse and was so excited I forgot to play the back nine." |
| Bruce Lansky |
"Talking to a golf ball won't do you any good. Unless you do it while your opponent is teeing off." |
| Bruce Lansky |
"The only thing in my bag that works is the bug spray." |
| Bruce Lansky |
"My physchiatrist prescribed a game of golf as an antidote to the feelings of euphoria I experience from time to time." |
| Bruce Lansky |
"Never putt until the cup stops moving." |
| Bruce Lansky |
"I don’t think I’ll live long enough to shoot my age. I’m lucky to shoot my weight." |
| Bruce Lansky |
"Golf has more rules than any other game, because golf has more cheaters than any other game." |
| Bruce Lansky |
"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 |
"On a recent survey, 80 percent of golfers admitted cheating. The other 20 percent lied." |
| Bruce Lansky |
"The main problem with keeping your eye on the ball is you have to take your eye off your opponent." |
| Bruce Lansky |
"Someone once told me that there is more to like than golf. I think it was my ex-wife." |
| Bruce Lansky |
"We learn so many things from golf- how to suffer, for instance." |
| Tony Lema |
"Let's see, I think I right now I'm third in the money-winning and first in money-spending." |
| Jack Lemmon |
"If you think it's hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball." |
| Hal Linden |
"Learning to play golf is like learning to play the violin. It's not only difficult to do... it's very painful to everyone around you." |
| Bobby Locke |
"When you get up there in years, the fairways get longer and the holes get smaller." |
| Dave Marr |
"Never bet with anyone you meet on the first tee, who has a deep suntan, a one iron in his bag and squinty eyes." |
| Dean Martin |
"If you drink don’t drive. Don’t even putt." |
| John Stewart Martin |
"We speak of eyeball-to-eyeball encounters between men great and small. Even more reaching and revealing of character is the eyeball-to-golfball confrontation, whereby our most secret natures are mercilessly tested by a small, round, whitish object with no mind or will but with a very definite life of its own, and with whims perverse and beatific." |
| Colman McCarthy |
"Indeed, the highest pleasure of golf may be that on the fairways and far from all the pressures of commerce and rationality, we can feel immortal for a few hours." |
| H.L. Mencken |
"If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any office of trust in the United States." |
| Johnny Miller |
"I’m not sure that the most talented player I ever saw wasn’t myself." |
| Johnny Miller |
"Golf is 90 percent inspiration and 10 percent perspiration." |
| A.A. Milne |
"Golf is so popular simply because it is the best game in the world at which to be bad." |
| Jim Murray |
"If your caddie coaches you on the tee, ‘Hit it down the left side with a little draw,’ ignore him. All you do on the tee is try not to hit the caddie." |
| Jim Murray |
"Actually, the only time I ever took out a one iron was to kill a tarantula. And I took a seven to do that." |
| Jim Murray |
"There are certain things you don’t believe in. The Easter Bunny, Campaign promises, The Abominable Snowman, A husband with lipstick on his collar, and a guy who tells you he shop a 59 on his own ball- out of town of course!" |
| National Lampoon |
"If you want to take long walks, take long walks. If you want to hit things with a stick, hit things with a stick. But there's no excuse for combining the two and putting the results on TV. Golf is not so much a sport as an insult to lawns." |
| Byron Nelson |
"The only shots you can be sure of are those you’ve had already." |
| Jack Nicklaus |
"The older you get the stronger the wind gets- and it's always in your face." |
| Greg Norman |
"I played like s___." -after the Masters. |
| Greg Norman |
"Happiness is a long walk with a putter." |
| Capt. Bruce Warren Ollstein |
"Golf is war. And like all wars, if you’re not looking to win, you probably shouldn’t show up." |
| Billy Orville |
"Golf is a lot like sex. Even when you cheat you still have to get it up and in. And that gets tougher and tougher to do every year." |
| Paul O’Neil |
"Gold is essentially an exercise in masochism conducted out of doors." |
| P.J. O’Rourke |
"I found out that all the important lessons of life are contained in the three rules for achieving a perfect golf swing.1.Keep your head down - 2. Follow through - 3. Be born with money" |
| 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 |
"I have a tip that can take 5 strokes off anyone’s golf game. It is called an eraser." |
| Harvey Penick |
"Good players have the power to think while they are competing. Most golfers are not thinking even when they believe they are. They are only worrying." |
| Harvey Penick |
"Golf tips are like aspirin. One may do you good, but if you swallow the whole bottle you will be lucky to survive." |
| Gary Player |
"The harder you work, the luckier you get." |
| Gary Player |
"The more I practice, the luckier I get." |
| Mike Purkey |
"Don't you just hate it when you try to think of something other than golf...and you can't?" |
| James Reston |
"Golf is a plague invented by the Calvinistic Scots as a punishment for man’s sins. As General Eisenhower discovered, it is easier to end the Cold War or stamp out poverty than to master this devilish pastime." |
| Alexander Revell |
"The only shots you can be dead sure of are those you’ve had already." |
| Grantland Rice |
"Eighteen holes of match play will teach you more about your foe than nineteen years of dealing with him across the desk." |
| Grantland Rice |
"Golf is twenty percent mechanics and technique. The other eighty percent is philosophy, humor, tragedy, romance, melodrama, companionship, camaraderie, cussedness, and conversation." |
| Chi Chi Rodriguez |
"Golf is the most fun you can have without taking your clothes off." |
| Chi Chi Rodriquez |
"I don't fear death... but I sure do hate those three footers for par." |
| Chi Chi Rodriquez |
"I am a millionaire today and my wife deserves all of the credit. Before I met her I was a multi-millionaire." |
| Will Rogers |
"I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf will. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you can get so sore at yourself that you forget to hate your enemies." |
| Will Rogers |
"Golf is a wonderful exercise. You can stand on your feet for hours, watching somebody else putt." |
| Harold Segall |
"Golf is not just exercise; it is an adventure, a romance…a Shakespeare play in which disaster and comedy are intertwined and you have to live with the consequences." |
| Patty Sheenan |
"It’s nice to have the opportunity to play for so much money, but it’s nicer to win it." |
| Burt Shotten |
"Any game where a man sixty can beat a man thirty ain’t no game." |
| Phil Silvers |
"Be funny on a golf course? Do I kid my best friend’s mother about her heart condition?" |
| Tommy Smothers |
"I have a twelve-piece takeaway." |
| 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 |
"Lay off for three weeks then quit for good."- advice to a pupil |
| Sam Snead |
"Nobody asked how you looked, just what you shot." |
| Sam Snead |
"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 |
"You’ve just one problem. You stand too close to the ball after you’ve hit it." |
| Craig Stadler |
"Why am I using a new putter? Because the last one didn’t float too well." |
| Adlai Stevenson |
"Golf is a fine relief from the tensions of office, but we are a little tired of holding the bag." |
| Dave Stockton |
"The number one thing about trouble is...don’t get into more." |
| Curtis Strange |
"I don’t think television work has screwed up my golf. I’ve pretty much taken care of that on my own." |
| Brian Swarbrick |
"There are no points for style when it comes to putting. It’s getting the ball in the cup that counts." |
| Lily Tomlin |
"What goes up must come down. But don’t expect it to come down where you can find it." |
| Harry Toscano |
"I’m hitting the woods just great. But I’m having a terrible time getting out of them." |
| Harry Toscano |
"I’m hitting the woods just great, but I’m having a terrible time getting out of them" |
| Bob Toski |
"Most golfers prepare for disaster. A good golfer prepares for success." |
| Lee Trevino |
"You make a lot of money in this game. Just ask my ex-wives. Both of them are so rich that neither of their husbands’ work." |
| Lee Trevino |
"You don’t know what pressure is until you’ve played for five dollars a hole with only two in your pocket." |
| Lee Trevino |
"When I'm on a golf course and it starts to rain and lightning, I hold up my one iron, 'caus I know even God can't hit a one iron." |
| Lee Trevino |
"Putts get real difficult the day they hand out the money." |
| Lee Trevino |
"It’s the most fun I’ve had with my clothes on." |
| Lee Trevino |
"In case of a thunderstorm, stand in the middle of the fairway and hold up a one iron. Not even God can hit a one iron." |
| Lee Trevino |
"I'm going to win so much money this year, my caddie will make the top twenty money-winners list." |
| Lee Trevino |
"No one who ever had lessons would have a swing like mine." |
| Lee Trevino |
"There are two things in this world that don't last long; dogs chasing cars and pros putting for pars." |
| Mark Twain |
"Golf is good walk spoiled." |
| Mark Twain |
"It's still good sportsmanship to not pick up lost balls while they are still rolling." |
| Jessica Anderson Valentine |
"The friends you make on the golf course are the friends you make for life." |
| Ken Venturi |
"Victory is everything. You can spend the money, but you can never spend the memories." |
| Tom Watson |
"The person I fear most in the last two rounds is myself." |
| Tom Watson |
"A lot of guys who have have never choked, have never been in the position to do so." |
| Tom Watson |
"There is no surer or more painful way to learn a rule than to be penalized once for breaking it." |
| H.G. Wells |
"The uglier a man’s legs are, the better he play golf. It is almost a law." |
| Dave Williams |
"If you want to beat someone out on the golf course, just get him mad." |
| John Willis |
"You can’t lose an old golf ball." |
| P.G.Wodehouse |
"He enjoys that perfect peace, that peace beyond all understanding, which comes at its maximum only to the man who has given up golf." |
| Kevin Wohl |
"Golf is like any other sports competition. There is not a whole lot of point to it unless someone suffers." |
| William Wordsworth |
"Golf is a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness." |
| Walt Zambriski |
"I've made a million, but I don't have a million." |
| Fuzzy Zoeller |
"Every golfer has a little monster in him, it’s just that type of sport." |
| Robert E. Zorn |
"Go ahead and putt, you are not interrupting my conversation." |
