A golfer should always stay with what has become natural. Jack Nicklaus
A kid grows up a lot faster on the golf course. Golf teaches you how to behave. Jack Nicklaus
Achievement is largely the product of steadily raising one’s levels of aspiration and expectation. Jack Nicklaus
All I ever wanted to do was play competitive golf against the best players in the world. Jack Nicklaus
Augusta National is a young man’s golf course, and you really need a young man’s nerves to play on it. Jack Nicklaus
Being in the money doesn’t mean anything unless you’re starving to death. Jack Nicklaus
Beyond good hand-eye coordination, perhaps my greatest inherent gift in regard to golf is the ability to compartmentalize my mind, to switch it at will totally from one activity or concern to another, then, for the required duration of the new focus, blank everything else out 100 percent. Jack Nicklaus
Complacency is a continuous struggle that we all have to fight. Jack Nicklaus
Concentration blocks out pressure. If you make mistakes and look for excuses, you lose your concentration and feel pressure. I try to keep from doing that. Jack Nicklaus
Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety. Jack Nicklaus
Confidence is the most important single factor in this game, and no matter how great your natural talent, there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work. Jack Nicklaus
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
Crises are part of life. Everybody has to face them, and it doesn’t make any difference what the crisis is. Jack Nicklaus
Don’t be too proud to take lessons. I’m not. Jack Nicklaus
Don’t ever try to tell me golf is not 99.9 percent a mental game. Jack Nicklaus
Every putt is different. Your feet dictate the stroke by how they feel on the green. I just never used the same stroke on every putt. Jack Nicklaus
Everybody has bad periods. The only thing is that I haven’t had one since I was 17. Jack Nicklaus
Focus on remedies, not faults. Jack Nicklaus
Getting good at this game, then staying good, is a tough and lonely and endless journey, with lots of dead-ends and other frustrations to strain your body and stress your mind along the way. Jack Nicklaus
Golf is a better game played downhill… Jack Nicklaus
Jack Nicklaus Quotes
Golf is a game of precision, not strength. Jack Nicklaus
Golf is a nice game, but that’s all. It’s never going to be an exciting game to watch on TV. It’s not a circus and never will be one. The audience for golf is not going to change significantly. It’s always going to be people who play it, understand it, and love it. Jack Nicklaus
Golf is game of respect and sportsmanship; we have to respect its traditions and its rules. Jack Nicklaus
Golf is not, and never has been, a fair game. Jack Nicklaus
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
Golf was my vehicle to competition, and I can’t play if I can’t compete. Jack Nicklaus
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
I always thought the U.S. Open made a man out of you more than any other tournament. Jack Nicklaus
I don’t believe in philosophies. I believe in fundamentals. Jack Nicklaus
I don’t really have a problem saying good-bye to things. All things come to an end. Jack Nicklaus
I don’t smile much when I’m playing. And sometimes when I do, you can’t tell. Jack Nicklaus
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
I knew that if I kept the pressure on and didn’t do anything stupid I would probably win. Jack Nicklaus
I know it sounds selfish, wanting to do something no one else has done. But that’s what you’re out here for – to separate yourself from everyone else. Jack Nicklaus
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
I like trying to win. That’s what golf is all about. Jack Nicklaus
I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head. Jack Nicklaus
I never missed a putt in my mind. Jack Nicklaus
I never used golf as a job. I used it as a game. I always thought if I played the game well, my financial rewards would be there, but it came from, because I played well. But I had to play well to get the financial rewards. Jack Nicklaus
I never went into a tournament or round of golf thinking I had to beat a certain player. I had to beat the golf course. If I prepared myself for a major, went in focused, and then beat the golf course, the rest took care of itself. Jack Nicklaus
Jack Nicklaus Quotes
I think anybody, any businessman, any athlete who’s successful has to be egocentric. I don’t think there’s any question about that. If you are going to try to be good at something, you can’t let somebody else do it for you. Jack Nicklaus
I want to be the best golfer the world has ever seen. Jack Nicklaus
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
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
If you want to hit it farther, hit it better. Jack Nicklaus
If you’re going to be a player people will remember, you have to win the Open at St. Andrews. Jack Nicklaus
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
I’m deadly serious even when I play tennis against my kids. I want to beat their brains out. Jack Nicklaus
It takes hundreds of good golf shots to gain confidence, but only one bad one to lose it. Jack Nicklaus
It’s a great sense of accomplishment when you can take something and really think it’s really tough, and then all of a sudden you conquer it. That makes you feel pretty good. Jack Nicklaus
It’s great to win, but it’s also great fun just to be in the thick of any truly well and hard fought contest against opponents you respect, whatever the outcome. Jack Nicklaus
I’ve had a lot of majors where I didn’t play well until the last round. Keep yourself in contention; that’s the name of the game. I usually ended up shooting a good round and all of a sudden, somehow, I won. Jack Nicklaus
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
Jones is the greatest golfer who ever lived and probably ever will live. That’s my goal. Bobby Jones. It’s the only goal. Jack Nicklaus
Keeping the head still is golf’s one universal, unarguable fundamental. Jack Nicklaus
Learn the fundamentals of the game and stick to them. Band-Aid remedies never last. Jack Nicklaus
Life is an adventure. You do the best you can to plan, but you never know what’s going to happen. It’s kind of nice to not know what is around the corner. That’s the adventure. Jack Nicklaus
Most putting troubles stem from being scared or indecisive, or both. Jack Nicklaus
My ability to concentrate and work toward that goal has been my greatest asset. Jack Nicklaus
No great golf course was ever right at the start. Golf courses aren’t built… they evolve. Jack Nicklaus
Jack Nicklaus Quotes
Nobody – but nobody – has ever become really proficient at golf without practice, without doing a lot of thinking and then hitting a lot of shots. It isn’t so much a lack of talent; it’s a lack of being able to repeat good shots consistently that frustrates most players. And the only answer to that is practice. Jack Nicklaus
Nobody ever remembers who finished second at anything. Jack Nicklaus
Professional golf is the only sport where, if you win 20% of the time, you’re the best. Jack Nicklaus
Public appearances are a headache. I hold mine down to a minimum. Jack Nicklaus
Self-control demands self-honesty above all else. Learn to fight emotionalism with realism. Accept first and foremost the cold fact that every shot you hit, good or bad, is the product of only one person: YOU. Accept, secondly, that you rarely if ever will play or score quite as well as you think you can and should. I never have. Jack Nicklaus
Some people say it’s OK to lose if your opponent has a hot round. Phooey on that. I hate to lose – period. If a guy is going to shoot a 10 under par, I am going to shoot an 11 under par. Jack Nicklaus
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
Sometimes, I’m an ogre. I can be short. I’ll walk into the office some days and I’ve gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, and everybody knows it. I’m a perfectionist. I like to be organized, and I like to get everything done today. Jack Nicklaus
Success depends almost entirely on how effectively you learn to manage the game’s two ultimate adversaries: the course and yourself. Jack Nicklaus
Talent isn’t as important as the work and dedication necessary to become competent. Jack Nicklaus
Temper is the one thing you can’t get rid of by losing it. Jack Nicklaus
The best way to cope with trouble is to stay out of it as much as possible. Jack Nicklaus
The biggest tension-reliever of all in golf is confidence… The second-biggest is within anyone’s capacity. It is concentration. Jack Nicklaus
The longer you play, the better chance the better player has of winning. Jack Nicklaus
The older you get the stronger the wind gets – and it’s always in your face. Jack Nicklaus
The successful people seem to have blinders on. Everything is straight ahead. They go forward and know exactly what they’re going to do once they’ve made up their mind to do it, and by God they don’t look sideways. Jack Nicklaus
The worse you’re performing, the more you must work mentally and emotionally. The greatest and toughest art in golf is “playing badly well.” All the true greats have been masters at it. Jack Nicklaus
There isn’t a secret to golf, of course, but no real player will ever believe that. Jack Nicklaus
This is a game. That’s all it is. It’s not a war. Jack Nicklaus
Through years of experience I have found that air offers less resistance than dirt. Jack Nicklaus
Jack Nicklaus Quotes
Today, if any young athlete were to ask my advice, I would counsel him not to be too slick, to be himself, and to try and temper honesty with tactfulness. Jack Nicklaus
Well, the biggest rival I had in my career was me. Jack Nicklaus
When the British Open is in Scotland, there’s something special about it. And when it’s at St. Andrews, it’s even greater. Jack Nicklaus
You attack a golf course mentally, not with your swing. Jack Nicklaus
You have to love something and have a passion for it to be disciplined. My commitment was purely to golf. Jack Nicklaus
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
You’ve got to have the confidence that you can win; you’ve got to expect to win. If you don’t, you have no business being there. Jack Nicklaus