Jack Nicklaus

If I have a weakness, it's probably ice cream. That's where I get lax, sloppy. I'll sneak into the refrigerator at night and take two or three bites and put it back. Butter pecan. Only two or three bites, but it shows.

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I played competitive golf all my life. Then all of a sudden, when I quit playing the game, I've got all this spare time and this energy. And certainly I wasn't ready to pack up my bags and go sit in front of the television with a shawl on.

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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.

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I had polio when I was 13. I started feeling stiff, my joints ached, and over a two-week period I lost my coordination and 20 pounds.

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There are no maladies in my golf game. My golf game stinks.

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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.

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The older you get the stronger the wind gets and it's always in your face.

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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.

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Well, I think that Augusta is not the same golf course that I grew up on. Bobby Jones' philosophy was giving you space off the tee; if you put it in the right side of the fairway, you ended up getting the right angle to the green.

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I thoroughly enjoy working with kids, whether it's The First Tee or the lesson tee with my grandkids.

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In 1979, when I was 39, I had such a bad year, I thought it was all over. Thankfully it wasn't.

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The way I pack is I look at how long I'll be gone and I pack day for day. If I'm going on a three-day fishing trip, I plot each day. I put most of that in a little bag. If I'm going from there to work on golf courses for a few days, I plot that trip.

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I couldn't control Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Watson or Lee Trevino. The only person I could control was me. The only person I could prepare for events was me. And if I didn't play well, I didn't play well, and I wasn't going to compete.

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The biggest rival I had in my career was me. I couldn't control Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Watson or Lee Trevino. The only person I could control was me.

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A big part of managing a golf course is managing your swing on the course. A lot of guys can go out and hit a golf ball, but they have no idea how to manage what they do with the ball. I've won as many golf tournaments hitting the ball badly as I have hitting the ball well.

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Golf is game of respect and sportsmanship; we have to respect its traditions and its rules.

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If I were to look back on my work, I think I accomplished probably about 70 to 75 percent of what I could have. Maybe 60 percent. Somewhere in that area; two-thirds of what I could have accomplished. If I had been a really dedicated person, and really worked hard, I think I could have accomplished more.

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Success depends almost entirely on how effectively you learn to manage the game's two ultimate adversaries: the course and yourself.

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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.

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Did you know there's probably more golf played in Iceland than most places in the world? They play 24 hours a day in the summertime and the northern part is warmer than the southern part.

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Quotes by Jack Nicklaus