17 Quotes & Sayings By Jack Nicklaus

Jack Nicklaus is the most successful golfer of all time. Nicklaus won 18 professional majors and held the world's No. 1 ranking for a record 237 weeks. He is also known as the Golden Bear, because of his golden-colored hair and mustache Read more

He was the youngest player to win the Masters Tournament (age 21) and has stayed at or near the top of the game longer than anyone since. He is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, PGA Tour Champions, and has received many awards including being named to "Golf Magazine"'s 50 Greatest Players in History in 2002.

1
To sink a six-foot putt with thirty million people looking over your shoulder convince yourself that if you miss it you will be embarrassed and poor. Jack Nicklaus
2
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
3
Golf is game of respect and sportsmanship we have to respect its traditions and its rules. Jack Nicklaus
4
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
5
He has the finest, fundamentally sound golf swing I've ever seen. Jack Nicklaus
6
He's going to be around a long, long time, if his body holds up. That's always a concern with a lot of players because of how much they play. A lot of guys can't handle it. But it looks like he can. Jack Nicklaus
7
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
8
I'd rather be two strokes ahead going into the last day than two strokes behind. Having said that, it's probably easier to win coming from behind. There is no fear in chasing. There is fear in being chased. Jack Nicklaus
9
The fact is, I diet every day of my life. I have to work at it. But I diet so I can pig out. Jack Nicklaus
10
A Nicklaus Design golf course is done by the guys in my company that I work with, that have been trained in my vision, and they do what they think I might do. They might come in the office and ask me questions and I'd certainly answer their questions, but I'm not involved in the site visits or anything else. Jack Nicklaus
11
Pete Dye introduced me to golf course design back in the 1960's. He came to my hometown Columbus, Ohio to work on The Golf Club. Jack Nicklaus
12
I've wanted to design golf courses ever since I was a kid. I suppose it comes from the way I've played the game. To find the proper way to play any hole, I've always begun by asking myself what the architect has tried to do with it. Jack Nicklaus
13
I love design in general, the creativity. Whether it is golf courses, my apparel line, ads we do or our business with AriZona, design is fun. Jack Nicklaus
14
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
15
You have to trust your kids. They have to experience life, and you just hope you've provided them a foundation for what's right and what isn't. Jack Nicklaus
16
Success depends almost entirely on how effectively you learn to manage the game's two ultimate adversaries: the course and yourself. Jack Nicklaus