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
You don't think anything about age when you're playing [golf]. I mean, why would you ever think about that.
It's a great sense of accomplishment when you can take something and really think it's really tough, and then all of a sudden you conquer it. That makes you feel pretty good.
I think that Pebble Beach is my favorite golf course to go to. I think Augusta is my favorite place to go play golf.
I never went into a tournament or round of golf thinking I had to beat a certain player. I had to beat the golf course. If I prepared myself for a major, went in focused, and then beat the golf course, the rest took care of itself.
A Nicklaus Design golf course is done by the guys in my company that I work with, that have been trained in my vision, and they do what they think I might do. They might come in the office and ask me questions and I'd certainly answer their questions, but I'm not involved in the site visits or anything else.
Nobody - but nobody - has ever become really proficient at golf without practice, without doing a lot of thinking and then hitting a lot of shots. It isn't so much a lack of talent; it's a lack of being able to repeat good shots consistently that frustrates most players. And the only answer to that is practice.
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.
People don't want to go to the dump and have a picnic, they want to go out to a beautiful place and enjoy their day. And so I think our job is to try to take the environment, take what the good Lord has given us, and expand upon it or enhance it, without destroying it.
None of the guys did anything. We never did anything. I never really got into the workout room until I was about 40 years old. I was pretty strong and I didn't think I needed that much.
I think I fail a bit less than everyone else.
Well, I think that Augusta is not the same golf course that I grew up on. Bobby Jones' philosophy was giving you space off the tee; if you put it in the right side of the fairway, you ended up getting the right angle to the green.
If you design something pretty with good golf shots in it, then I think that's the combination that creates a really nice golf course.
I think we have more good players today [2016] than we've ever had in the game of golf. And I think that's saying a lot because we had a lot of good players when I played. I think you had a bit of a lag in there for a while, that Tiger was just so much better than everybody else that he really didn't put anybody in with him.
I don't think about winning the Masters as part of the slam. You want to win the Masters because of what it means to the game.