The Golfers Mind
"The inner game has always been the last frontier in golf. Why? Because the source of all excellence is within, and because that's usually the last place we look for it."
Timothy Gallwey
The Inner Game of Golf
Aim & Alignment Series
The Golfers Mind
A kid grows up a lot faster on the golf course. Golf teaches you how to behave.
A
perfectly straight shot with a big club is a fluke.
Concentration is a fine antidote
to anxiety.
Confidence is the most important single factor in this game, and no matter
how great your natural talent, there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work.
Don't be too proud to take lessons. I'm not.
Focus on remedies, not faults.
Golf
is a better game played downhill.
He had a lot of talent, but didn't have much dedication,
wasn't organized, didn't know how to learn, didn't know how to comprehend what he
was doing, didn't try to learn how to get better.
He has the finest, fundamentally
sound golf swing I've ever seen.
He's going to be around a long, long time, if his
body holds up. That's always a concern with a lot of players because of how much
they play. A lot of guys can't handle it. But it looks like he can.
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.
I
like trying to win. That's what golf is all about.
I think I fail a bit less than
everyone else.
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.
It's hard not to play golf that's up to Jack Nicklaus standards when you are Jack
Nicklaus.
My ability to concentrate and work toward that goal has been my greatest
asset.
Professional golf is the only sport where, if you win 20% of the time, you're
the best.
Resolve never to quit, never to give up, no matter what the situation.
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.
Success depends almost entirely
on how effectively you learn to manage the game's two ultimate adversaries: the course
and yourself.
The game is meant to be fun.
The longer you play, the better chance the better player
has of winning.
The older you get the stronger the wind gets and it's always in your
face.
There are no maladies in my golf game. My golf game stinks.
This is a game.
That's all it is. It's not a war.
Through the years of experience I have found that
air offers less resistance than dirt.
When I want a long ball, I spin my hips faster.
“I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-
