quotations about golf
Give me golf clubs, fresh air, and a beautiful partner, and you can keep my golf clubs and the fresh air.
JACK BENNY
attributed, Al Capone Was a Golfer
A golf ball leaves the club at 125 miles per hour, or just a little faster than some golfers leave the office.
E. C. MCKENZIE
14,000 Quips and Quotes
Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
DAVE BARRY
Dave Barry's Stay Fit and Healthy Until You're Dead
From the beginning it was drilled into me that a golf course was a place where character fully reveals itself -- both its strengths and its flaws. As a result, I learned early not only to fix my ball marks but also to congratulate an opponent on a good shot, avoid walking ahead of a player preparing to shoot, remain perfectly still when someone else was playing, and a score of other small courtesies that revealed, in my father's mind, one's abiding respect for the game.
ARNOLD PALMER
A Golfer's Life
The game of golf is full of consolation. The long driver who is beaten feels that he has a soul above putting. All those who cannot drive thirty yards suppose themselves to be good putters. Your hashy player piques himself on his power of recovery. The duffer is a duffer merely because every second shot is missed. Time or care will eliminate the misses, and then!
W. G. SIMPSON
"The Praise and Origin of Golf", Classic Golf Stories
Golf is harder than baseball--you have to play your foul balls.
JACQUI NICOLETTI MCSORLEY & JOHNNY GONZALES
Golf Guide for Parents and Players
Golf: A plague invented by the Calvinistic Scots as a punishment for man's sins.
JAMES BARRETT RESTON
Uncle Anthony's Unabridged Analogies
Golf is deceptively simple, endlessly complicated. A child can play it well and a grown man can never master it. It is almost a science, yet it is a puzzle with no answer.
ARNOLD PALMER
attributed, Arnold Palmer's Success Lessons: Wisdom on Golf, Business, and Life from the King of Golf
The difference between a good golf shot and a bad one is the same as the difference between a beautiful and a plain woman -- a matter of millimetres.
IAN FLEMING
Goldfinger
A woman in Great Britain has died after being hit in the back of the head by a golf ball, on the first hole. Her husband was so distraught, he only played the front nine.
JAY LENO
The Tonight Show, October 12, 2009
Golf pros, almost to a man are conservative. Perhaps this is forced on them by the game they play. Golf is a game of considered judgment, careful ball placement and strategy, the avoidance of hazards. Most who play are not prone to take chances.
AL BARKOW
attributed, New Quotable Golfer
Golf is a game in which you try to put a small ball in a small hole with implements singularly unsuited to the purpose.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
attributed, Chronicle of Golf
I play golf religiously. If I make a shot ... it's a miracle!
TOM WILSON
Ziggy, Apr. 4, 1998
Golf ... combines two favorite American pastimes: taking long walks and hitting things with a stick.
P.J. O'ROURKE
Modern Manners
Golf sits in that beautiful junction between perfection and frustration.
COLLEEN FERRARY BADER
attributed, goodreads
Golf is typical capitalist lunacy.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
attributed, The Hole Is More Than the Sum of the Putts
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
MARK TWAIN
Greatly Exaggerated: The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain
The socially redeeming aspect of golf lies in the vast number of lawyers and bankers and managers who play it, and when you think of the damage they would do if they were at the job instead, you can see why golf courses are a wise investment for any municipality.
GARRISON KEILLOR
"The Art of Travel,", A Prairie Home Companion, Jul. 28, 2009
Of all the recreational activities of man, golf had to be the stupidest. The massive effort to beat nature into submission--daily moving, watering, and dousing of chemicals--so a man could pay ninety thousand dollars to push a ball into a hole. It was like they'd deliberately dreamed up the most expensive and ecologically damaging way to enjoy a day in the sun.
MAGGIE THRASH
Strange Lies
Perhaps more than any other sport, golf focuses pressure on the player. There are no time constraints, as there are in other sports. Your competitors are not allowed to hinder you, as they are in other sports. The pressure originates in yourself; it builds from doubts. A two-foot putt on the practice green doesn't spark many doubts. A two-foot putt to win a bet or a tournament or a Masters is another thing entirely.
JOE POSNANSKI
The Secret of Golf