Jack Nicklaus
Jack Nicklaus
Jack William Nicklaus, nicknamed "The Golden Bear", is a retired American professional golfer. He is widely regarded as the greatest golfer of all time, winning a total of 18 career major championships, while producing 19 second-place and 9 third-place finishes in them, over a span of 25 years. Nicklaus focused on the major championships, and played a selective schedule of regular PGA Tour events, yet still finished with 73 victories, third on the all-time list behind Sam Sneadand Tiger Woods...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionGolfer
Date of Birth21 January 1940
CityUpper Arlington, OH
CountryUnited States of America
I love Augusta. Don't get me wrong. All I want is for Augusta to be Augusta, because it's such a great tournament. But when you take a golf course and limit the number of people that have the ability to win ... Their intention is not to do that. But they're doing that.
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.
To sink a six-foot putt with thirty million people looking over your shoulder, convince yourself that, if you miss it, you will be embarrassed and poor.
How people keep correcting us when we are young! There is always some bad habit or other they tell us we ought to get over. Yet most bad habits are tools to help us through life.
We [with my wife] felt like we had the ability to help people not just on a local basis, but on a national basis.
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.
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.
People only do their best at things they truly enjoy
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.
In many ways, Angelo was part of our family, and Barbara and I will miss him greatly.
I know what Augusta is trying to do. Whether they've gone overboard, I'm not sure. But they've eliminated a lot of guys who are able to win. That's the change at Augusta I have a hard time with.
I know what Augusta is trying to do.
I know that when I see Tiger Woods showed up a day early. And Charles Howell, Chris DiMarco and Jay Haas - they all four were here a day before anybody was supposed to be here to play the golf course and get ready for it.
I know what they're trying to do; they're trying to make it the same golf clubs that players traditionally should play into the greens. Whether they've gone overboard, I don't know. I just know they eliminated a lot of guys who don't have the ability to do that.