A biography for Jack Nicklaushasn’t been written yet.
“I think I fail a bit less than everyone else.”
“Mostly I built golf courses the way I played golf, which was left-to-right. But I learned very rapidly that people wanted to see more than just the way I played golf and that I had to balance up what I was doing, right-to-left, left-to-right, etc.”
“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.”
“I have said many times that most people work all their life to retire to play golf, while I played golf all my life to retire to work. I enjoy working. It has kept me young and on the move, and I have had a good time with it.”
“The longer you play, the better chance the better player has of winning.”
“Professional golf is the only sport where, if you win 20% of the time, you're the best.”
“The long irons are the nemesis of the average golfer. I'm convinced that the underlying reason for this is that he keeps hearing how hard they are to handle. They're not that difficult, truly.”
“Why are we building golf courses? Because we enjoy being outside, bringing man and nature together.”
“This is a game. That's all it is. It's not a war.”
“The fact is, I diet every day of my life. I have to work at it. But I diet so I can pig out.”
“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.”
“It's hard not to play golf that's up to Jack Nicklaus standards when you are Jack Nicklaus.”
“The Senior Tour is a good concept, although frankly I'm not astounded at its continued success. It gives a lot of guys an opportunity to extend their careers.”
“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.”
“I like to catch fish and release them. I probably haven't killed a fish that I've caught in sport fishing for 20 years. No reason to kill it. You know, just take it and release it.”
“In 1979, when I was 39, I had such a bad year, I thought it was all over. Thankfully it wasn't.”
“Golfers have a tendency to be very masochistic. They like to punish themselves for some reason. A lot of them like tough courses.”
“Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety.”
“The game is meant to be fun.”
“The best way to cope with trouble is to stay out of it as much as possible.”