Arnold Palmer

The winners at the Olympics step up, bursting with pride, because everything that they have worked for and all their dedication is rewarded in a climax that I, and most golfers, will never experience.

Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.

Look at the better players of my era - Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Raymond Floyd. They had pros they worked with from time to time, but out on Tour, thousands of miles from home, each of them learned to be his own best coach. I think Tiger can do the same.

The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done.

Success in golf depends less on strength of body than upon strength of mind and character.

When you lose the ability to step up and hit the ball as hard and as far as you want, that also affects your ability to will the ball to go where you want it to go, if you know what I mean.

I find myself getting associated with a lot of younger people in the game. I still enjoy playing with them, and I think they still enjoy playing with me. As long as I can stay competitive and have fun doing what I'm doing, I guess I'll keep doing it.

As my father taught me, and he drove home that point, he said, 'Just remember something. You don't need to tell anybody how good you are. You show them how good you are.' And he drove that home with me. So I learned early not to brag about how good I was or what I could do but let my game take that away and show them that I could play well enough.

I don't think that golf has a place for two sets of rules. I think one of the reasons that the game has progressed in the way that it has over the years is the fact that the amateurs and the pros all play the same game, and they play under the same set of rules.

Why hit a conservative shot? When you miss it, you are in just as much trouble as when you miss a bold one.

Putting is like wisdom - partly a natural gift and partly the accumulation of experience.

I have a tip that can take 5 strokes off anyone's golf game. It's called an eraser.

Everyone I built a course for thinks they have the best golf course in the world and I'm very pleased and proud of that.

As a kid growing up in Latrobe, PA, I could dream about being an Olympian like Jesse Owens or Johnny Weissmuller. I could also dream about being a great golfer like Bobby Jones or Byron Nelson. But the idea of being an Olympic golfer never occurred to me.

Golf challenges you mentally at any age, and when you become my age, it's a challenge physically to try to make your game work as well as it ever did. That's close to impossible, but that doesn't keep you from trying to hit the ball where you used to hit it and make the putts you used to make all the time.

It is a rare and difficult attainment to grow old gracefully and happily.

I never heard Jack Nicklaus say, 'I'm a great player,' or Tiger Woods, as a matter of fact. They just get out and do it. And I think that's far more appealing... than talking about how good you are.

My grandson Sam Saunders has been playing golf since he could hold a club and I spent a lot of time with him over the years. Like my father taught me, I showed him the fundamentals of the game and helped him make adjustments as he and his game matured over the years.

I'm not much for sitting around and thinking about the past or talking about the past. What does that accomplish? If I can give young people something to think about, like the future, that's a better use of my time.

I grew up in poverty on the edge of a golf course. I saw how people lived on the other side of the tracks, the upper crust and the WASPs at the country club. We had chickens and pigs in our yards. We butchered every year. I'll never forget those things.

We can argue about major championships and whether Tiger will ever surpass Jack's 18 majors, but what can't be argued is this: Tiger Woods is the most dominant, most skilled player we've ever seen.