Bobby Jones Quotes

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.

The main idea in golf as in life, I suppose is to learn to accept what cannot be altered and to keep on doing one's own reasoned and resolute best whether the prospect be bleak or rosy.

Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch course... the space between your ears.

You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank as to praise him for playing by the rules.

The real way to enjoy playing golf is to take pleasure not in the score, but in the execution of strokes.

Golf is a game that is played on a five-inch course

You swing your best when you have the fewest things to think about.

The object of golf is to beat someone. Make sure that someone is not yourself.

Golf is the only game I know of that actually becomes harder the longer you play it.

I never learned anything from a match that I won.

The toughest opponent of all is Old Man Par. He's a patient soul who never shoots a birdie and never incurs a bogey. And if you would travel the long road with him, you must be patient, too.

The rewards of golf, and of life too I expect, are worth very little if you don't play the game by the etiquette as well as by the rules.

In order to win, you must play your best golf when you need it most, and play your sloppy stuff when you can afford it. I shall not attempt to explain how you achieve this happy timing.

I get as much fun as the next man from whaling the ball as hard as I can and catching it squarely on the button. But from sad experience I learned not to try this in a round that meant anything.

A leading difficulty with the average player is that he totally misunderstands what is meant by concentration. He may think he is concentrating hard when he is merely worrying.

If I had ever been set down in any one place and told I was to play there, and nowhere else, for the rest of my life, I should have chosen the Old Course at St. Andrews.

The difference between a sand trap and water hazard is the difference between a car crash and an airplane crash. You have a chance of recovering from a car crash.

If ever I needed an eight foot putt, and everything I owned depended on it, I would want Arnold Palmer to putt for me.

Many shots are spoiled at the last instant by efforts to add a few more yards.

I will tell you privately it's not going to get better, it's going to get worse all the time, but don't fret. Remember, we play the ball where it lies, and now let's not talk about this, ever again.

In golf, the customs and etiquette and decorum are as important as the rules of play.

The best exercise for golfers is golfing.

If I needed advice from my caddie, he'd be hitting the shots and I'd be carrying the bag.

The secret of golf is to turn three shots into two.

Doesn't it show us all that we are silly little boys or fatuous asses to think that we can play golf without making a lot of bad shots?

Golf is recognized as one of the more difficult games to play or teach. One reason for this is that each person necessarily plays by feel, and a feel is almost impossible to describe.

It is nevertheless a game of considerable passion, either of the explosive type, or that which burns inwardly and sears the soul.

Nobody ever swung a club too slowly.

Golf is said to be an humbling game, but it is surprising how many people are either not aware of their weaknesses of else reckless of consequences.

Some people think they are concentrating when they're merely worrying.

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.

Nobody ever wins the National Open. Somebody loses it.

I have never felt so lonely as on a golf course in the midst of a championship with thousands of people around, especially when things began to go wrong and the crowds started wandering away.

No one ever swung too slowly.

I had held a notion that I could make a pretty fair appraisal of the worth of an opponent simply by speaking to him on the first tee and taking a good measuring look into his eyes.

The moment the average golfer attempts to play from long grass or a bunker or from a difficult lie of any kind, he becomes a digger instead of a swinger.

Rhythm and timing are the two things which we all must have, yet no one knows how to teach either.

I can play the game only one way. I must play every shot for all there is in it. I cannot play safe.

No putt is too short to be despised.

There isn't a hole out there [Augusta] that can't be birdied if you just think. But there isn't one that can't be double-bogeyed if you stop thinking.

I always like to see a person stand up to a golf ball as though he were perfectly at home in its presence.

The 'enemy' in golf is tension.

Some emotions cannot be endured with a golf club in your hands.

Golf is like eating peanuts. You can play too much or play too little.

Addressing a golf ball would seem to be a simple matter; that is, to the uninitiated who cannot appreciate that a golf ball can hold more terrors than a spacious auditorium packed with people.

Jack Nicklaus is playing an entirely different game, and one which I'm not even familiar with.

I got an extra hour's nap.

Golf is a game that creates emotions that sometimes cannot be sustained with the club still in one's hand.

Too much ambition is a bad thing to have in a bunker.

Bad putting is due more to the effect the green has upon the player than it has upon the action of the ball.