Dan Jenkins

“Something mystical happens to every writer who goes to the Masters for the first time, some sort of emotional experience that results in a search party having to be sent out to recover his typewriter from a clump of azaleas.”

“Locker rooms and grill rooms are still the best places to find out things you don't know - at the Masters or any other golf tournament.”

“CEOs are worried they're going to get fired any minute. They're worried about their portfolios.”

“Vijay Singh won a playoff in 2004 at Whistling Straits after a final-round 76, which was the highest last round by the winner of any major since 1938, when Reg Whitcombe won the British Open with a 78 in a storm that blew down the exhibition tent at Sandwich.”

“Valet parking is an essential at any decent club.”

“My life has been very lucky, but I made some of that luck.”

“The key to any good sports story is identifying the defining moment. In football games or a boxing match, it's usually pretty obvious. But in golf, sometimes it happens on Thursday. Usually it's Sunday, but guys who don't know the game, they can miss it.”

“Golf is 90% mental. Once you know how to hold the club, swing it, it's all in the mind.”

“My real heroes have always been sportswriters.”

“Though it was never a goal in life, it has occurred to me that I've met six presidents of the United States. OK, I met four of them before they became president, including Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, No. 43.”

“There are no Dave Marrs anymore.”

“Title IX came along and changed a lot of things for the better, but nevertheless, it meant that money became more important.”

“Just think about it: what in the name of God would Alabama be without the University of Alabama? What would Oklahoma be without the University of Oklahoma? Nothing.”

“If you're a friend or a relative of George Herbert Walker Bush, Prez 41, or George W. Bush, Prez 43, or any other Bushes, then you know an 18-hole round of golf shouldn't take more than three hours out of your day - there are other important things to do.”

“Here's all I know about Dubai: It's one of those somewhere-over-there places where they make sand.”

“The greatly anticipated 2009 Masters was like going to a Broadway hit and finding out that the star, Sir Tiger Woods, was off that night, and his replacement was the cab driver who dropped you off at the theater.”

“I can only tell you that eggs, country ham, biscuits, a pot of coffee, a morning paper, a table by the window overlooking the veranda and putting green, listening to the idle chitchat of competitors, authors, wits and philosophers, hasn't exactly been a torturous way to begin each day at the Masters all these years.”

“Presidents are nice people. They're nice, fun-loving people who have great jobs.”

“It must be the PGA Championship if it's August and you can sit down and talk to the heat or reach inside your shirt, where it's 110 degrees, and grab handfuls of humidity.”

“I like to be entertained, not smothered with 'literary' riddles.”