Part 8: Reference
Golf Quotes
A selection of quotes worth knowing — on the nature of the game, the mental challenge, and the culture. A few are genuinely philosophical; several are funny. All are worth having in the back of your mind for a long walk between shots.
A note on attribution: golf quotes are among the most frequently misattributed in sports. Several famous sayings have been wrongly credited to Mark Twain for decades; others have been polished over time until the original wording is lost. Where attribution is genuinely disputed, that is noted.
On the nature of the game:
"Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated." — Arnold Palmer
"Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch course — the space between your ears." — attributed to Bobby Jones (exact wording varies across sources)
"Golf is a puzzle without an answer. I've played the game for 40 years and I still haven't the slightest idea how to play." — Gary Player
"Golf is not, and never has been, a fair game." — Jack Nicklaus
"Golf is a game in which one endeavors to control a ball with implements ill adapted for the purpose." — Woodrow Wilson
"What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive." — Arnold Palmer
On the mental game:
"The most important shot in golf is the next one." — Ben Hogan
"Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing." — Ben Hogan
"I never learned anything from a match that I won." — Bobby Jones
"Too much ambition is a bad thing to have in a bunker." — Bobby Jones
"You swing your best when you have the fewest things to think about." — Bobby Jones
"A bad attitude is worse than a bad swing." — Payne Stewart
"Hit the shot you know you can hit, not the one you think you should." — Bob Rotella
On pressure and competition:
"You don't know what pressure is until you play for five bucks with only two bucks in your pocket." — Lee Trevino
"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
"Success in golf depends less on strength of body than upon strength of mind and character." — Arnold Palmer
"The golf swing is like a suitcase into which we are trying to pack one too many things." — John Updike
On humor and the absurdity of the game:
"If you are caught on a golf course during a storm and are afraid of lightning, hold up a 1-iron. Not even God can hit a 1-iron." — Lee Trevino
"Golf is a good walk spoiled." — most reliably attributed to Harry Leon Wilson (1906), though widely and incorrectly credited to Mark Twain for over a century
"It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling." — attributed to Mark Twain, though like many Twain golf quotes the original source is not definitively established
"Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical." — Yogi Berra (about baseball, but adopted so universally into golf that it belongs here; the deliberately broken arithmetic is the point)
"Golf is a game invented by the same people who think music comes out of a bagpipe." — Lee Trevino
"The only time my prayers are never answered is on the golf course." — Billy Graham
"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
On the game's duration and character:
"Golf is a game of misses. He who misses best wins." — Ben Hogan
"A kid grows up a lot faster on the golf course. Golf teaches you how to behave." — Jack Nicklaus
"Golf is a game of emotion and adjustment." — Jack Nicklaus
"You've got to be out of your mind to play this game — so most golfers are." — often attributed to various sources; exact origin unclear, but the sentiment is universal
From fiction and film — too good to omit:
"There are two things you can do with your head down — play golf and pray." — Lee Trevino (also used widely in golf instruction)
"Be the ball." — Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), Caddyshack (1980)
Caddyshack (1980) and Tin Cup (1996) are the two golf films most worth seeing for their quotable, affectionate, and occasionally profound relationship to the game's absurdity. Both are in the Golf Resources section.