Top 160 Jack Nicklaus Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “I think you’ve all heard my story about my daughter and how we felt Children’s Hospital saved her life when she was less than a year old. I won’t go through all of the details of that.”

— Jack Nicklaus

102. “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

103. “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

104. “I’ve been fortunate over my career to make a little history on the 16th hole at Augusta National.”

— Jack Nicklaus

105. “The game is meant to be fun.”

— Jack Nicklaus

106. “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.”

— Jack Nicklaus

107. “A big part of managing a golf course is managing your swing on the course.”

— Jack Nicklaus

108. “Oakmont, you’ve got to be playing slope.”

— Jack Nicklaus

109. “This is a tournament. The others are all championships.”

— Jack Nicklaus

110. “Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety.” – Jack Nicklaus.”

— Jack Nicklaus

111. “I don’t believe in philosophies. I believe in fundamentals.”

— Jack Nicklaus

112. “Writers have told me more than once that I’m a better interview in defeat than in victory, which is a compliment I am extremely proud of.”

— Jack Nicklaus

113. “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.”

— Jack Nicklaus

114. “The one strongest, most important part of my game is that I want to be the best. I won’t accept anything less that that. My ability to concentrate and work toward hat goal has been my greatest asset.”

— Jack Nicklaus

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

— Jack Nicklaus

116. “Golf is a better game played downhill.”

— Jack Nicklaus

117. “Arnold’s place in history will be as the man who took golf from being a game for the few to a sport for the masses. He was the catalyst who made that happen.”

— Jack Nicklaus

118. “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

119. “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.”

— Jack Nicklaus

120. “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

121. “When I fly in a helicopter, I insist there be two sets of controls, one for me in case something happens to the pilot. I’m no expert, but I know enough to at least get the thing on the ground. Nothing scares me like the thought of not being in control.”

— Jack Nicklaus

122. “When I want a long ball, I spin my hips faster.”

— Jack Nicklaus

123. “Through years of experience I have found that air offers less resistance than dirt.”

— Jack Nicklaus

124. “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

125. “Over the first three rounds you’re playing the course. In the final round, if you’re in contention, you’re playing the man.”

— Jack Nicklaus

126. “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

127. “I love the golf courses because it brought the best out of me. It made me prepare, made me work at it, made me do the things I needed to do to be better, and that’s what I loved about USGA events. If you couldn’t handle it, then you got beat, and that’s OK.”

— Jack Nicklaus

128. “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

129. “I don’t know if I’ll ever do it again or not, but frankly I don’t really care.”

— Jack Nicklaus

130. “I’m more proud of the good rounds I’ve played while hitting the ball badly than of the great rounds while hitting the ball well. I understand my swing well enough to get myself through a tournament and win it. I’ve made it work.”

— Jack Nicklaus

131. “All I ever wanted to do was play competitive golf against the best players in the world.”

— Jack Nicklaus

132. “Grand Haven will challenge the skilled player yet, because of some width to the holes, it also will be a fun course that the average player can enjoy.”

— Jack Nicklaus

133. “He had a lot of talent, but didn’t have much dedication, wasn’t organized, didn’t know how to learn, didn’t know how to comprehend what he was doing, didn’t try to learn how to get better.”

— Jack Nicklaus

134. “I understand golf is a game, and I’ve never treated it as anything else. Family is something that’s very special, and so they all contributed to the room. They all contributed to what my life was, my career was.”

— Jack Nicklaus

135. “I would never deny that Jack Nicklaus is the greatest player who ever lived.”

— Jack Nicklaus

136. “I like trying to win. That’s what golf is all about.”

— Jack Nicklaus

137. “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

138. “I’m deadly serious even when I play tennis against my kids. I want to beat their brains out.”

— Jack Nicklaus

139. “Scoring comes from being able to preserve what you’ve got and play your smart shots when you need to play them and not do stupid things and take advantage of things when have you them.”

— Jack Nicklaus

140. “That’s sort of overkill. We’ve had 70 years of the Ryder Cup, and it’s gotten along just fine. The pendulum will swing back without making a monumental thing about it.”

— Jack Nicklaus

141. “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

142. “I think I fail a bit less than everyone else.”

— Jack Nicklaus

143. “When you lip out several putts in a row, you should never think that means that you’re putting well. When you’re putting well, the only question is what part of the hole it’s going to fall in, not if it’s going in.”

— Jack Nicklaus

144. “And, of course, I’m constantly energized by designing courses around the world.”

— Jack Nicklaus

145. “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

146. “Oakmont is probably the premier – Oakmont and Augusta National are probably the top two set of greens in the country.”

— Jack Nicklaus

147. “If you want to hit it farther, hit it better.”

— Jack Nicklaus

148. “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

149. “The longer you play, the better chance the better player has of winning.”

— Jack Nicklaus

150. “The best way to cope with trouble is to stay out of it as much as possible.”

— Jack Nicklaus