Top 160 Jack Nicklaus Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I’m tired of giving my best and not having it be good enough.”

— Jack Nicklaus

2. “Resolve never to quit, never to give up, no matter what the situation.”

— Jack Nicklaus

3. “Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety.”

— Jack Nicklaus

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

— Jack Nicklaus

5. “Achievement is largely the product of steadily raising one’s level of aspiration and expectation.”

— Jack Nicklaus

6. “There is no room in your mind for negative thoughts.”

— Jack Nicklaus

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

— Jack Nicklaus

8. “Focus on remedies, not faults.”

— Jack Nicklaus

9. “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

10. “This is a game. That’s all it is. It’s not a war.”

— Jack Nicklaus

11. “Talent isn’t as important as the work and dedication necessary to become competent.”

— Jack Nicklaus

12. “Learn the fundamentals of the game and stick to them. Band-Aid remedies never last.”

— Jack Nicklaus

13. “Complacency is a continuous struggle that we all have to fight.”

— Jack Nicklaus

14. “Don’t be too proud to take lessons. I’m not.”

— Jack Nicklaus

15. “It’s difficult to excel at something you don’t truly enjoy.”

— Jack Nicklaus

16. “A kid grows up a lot faster on the golf course. Golf teaches you how to behave.”

— Jack Nicklaus

17. “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

18. “Augusta National is a young man’s golf course, and you really need a young man’s nerves to play on it.”

— Jack Nicklaus

19. “Nobody ever remembers who finished second at anything.”

— Jack Nicklaus

20. “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

21. “Before every shot, I go to the movies.”

— Jack Nicklaus

22. “It takes hundreds of good golf shots to gain confidence, but only one bad one to lose it.”

— Jack Nicklaus

23. “There are always new places to go fishing. For any fisherman, there’s always a new place, always a new horizon.”

— Jack Nicklaus

24. “You can win tournaments when you’re mechanical, but golf is a game of emotion and adjustment. If you’re not aware of what’s happening to your mind and your body when you’re playing, you’ll never be able to be the very best you can be.”

— Jack Nicklaus

25. “Golf is a game of precision, not strength.”

— Jack Nicklaus

26. “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

27. “Ask yourself how many shots you would have saved if you always developed a strategy before you hit, always played within your capabilities, never lost you temper, and never got down on yourself.”

— Jack Nicklaus

28. “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

29. “My ability to concentrate and work toward that goal has been my greatest asset.”

— Jack Nicklaus

30. “Pursue what you love, what you are passionate about. Don’t let somebody else dictate your life’s path.”

— Jack Nicklaus

31. “Once you play a tournament, you’re playing against the golf course, you’re playing against yourself and trying to do the best you can.”

— Jack Nicklaus

32. “Crises are part of life. Everybody has to face them, and it doesn’t make any difference what the crisis is.”

— Jack Nicklaus

33. “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

34. “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

35. “If there is one thing golf demands above all else, it is honesty.”

— Jack Nicklaus

36. “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

37. “But if I played well and prepared myself properly, then all I had to do was control myself and put myself in a position to win.”

— Jack Nicklaus

38. “Temper is the one thing you can’t get rid of by losing it.”

— Jack Nicklaus

39. “I never missed a putt in my mind.”

— Jack Nicklaus

40. “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.”

— Jack Nicklaus

41. “Ben Hogan was not really a big hitter. He was long enough. But Ben Hogan today? Ben Hogan today could not compete at Augusta because he did not have the massive length to compete against the long hitters. Power was always an issue at Augusta, but never so dominant that you couldn’t play it.”

— Jack Nicklaus

42. “The importance of my legacy is not the golf course, it’s what my life is, and what my life is intended to be. The game of golf is a game. My family is my life.”

— Jack Nicklaus

43. “Pete Egoscue has totally changed my life. Never have I experienced such complete pain relief as I have by following the Egoscue Method.”

— Jack Nicklaus

44. “Golf is you against yourself.”

— Jack Nicklaus

45. “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

46. “I think that Pebble Beach is my favorite golf course to go to. I think Augusta is my favorite place to go play golf.”

— Jack Nicklaus

47. “A perfectly straight shot with a big club is a fluke.”

— Jack Nicklaus

48. “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

49. “Whether it’s pool or Ping Pong, I can’t stand to have my kids beat me. Especially Ping Pong! And when they beat me, they just needle the devil out of me. That’s fine. I’d rather have that than let them win a shallow victory.”

— Jack Nicklaus

50. “I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head.”

— Jack Nicklaus