I've Spent Most Of My Life Playing Golf... The Rest I've Just Wasted

I am not only a writer I am a talker. I talk to every swing, good and bad, though I tend to talk to bad shots more than the good ones. I sometimes cuss bad shots that turn out well, which really ticks off whoever I’m playing with. I actually miss-hit my only hole-in-one, and cussed an eagle that was bladed from the fairway to the bottom of the hole.

Over the years the famous, infamous and folks you never heard of like me have had some interesting things to say about the great game. Here are just a few:

Golf is a good walk spoiled. ~Mark Twain

Eighteen holes of match or medal play will teach you more about your foe than will 18 years of dealing with him across a desk. ~Grantland Rice

Golf is like an 18-year-old girl with big boobs. You know it's wrong but you can't keep away from her. ~Val Doonican

Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five. ~John Updike

They call it golf because all of the other four-letter words were taken. ~Raymond Floyd

Actually, the only time I ever took out a one-iron was to kill a tarantula. And it took a seven to do that. ~Jim Murray

A "gimme" can best be defined as an agreement between two golfers, neither of whom can putt very well. ~Author Unknown

If profanity had an influence on the flight of the ball, the game of golf would be played far better than it is. ~Horace G. Hutchinson

Golf is like a love affair. If you don't take it seriously, it's no fun; if you do take it seriously, it breaks your heart. ~Arthur Daley

The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing. ~Phyllis Diller

The ardent golfer would play Mount Everest if somebody put a flagstick on top. ~Pete Dye

If I can hit a curveball, why can't I hit a ball that is standing still on a course? ~Larry
Nelson

Art said he wanted to get more distance. I told him to hit it and run backward. ~Ken Venturi, on Art Rosenbaum

The sport of choice for the urban poor is basketball. The sport of choice for maintenance level employees is bowling. The sport of choice for front-line workers is football. The sport of choice for supervisors is baseball. The sport of choice for middle management is tennis. The sport of choice for corporate officers is golf. Conclusion: The higher you are in the corporate structure, the smaller your balls become. ~Author Unknown

Golf balls are attracted to water as unerringly as the eye of a middle-aged man to a female bosom. ~Michael Green, The Art of Coarse Golf, 1967

If you're caught on a golf course during a storm and are afraid of lightning, hold up a 1-iron. Not even God can hit a 1-iron. ~Lee Trevino

Golf is played by twenty million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun. ~Jim Bishop

"Play it as it lies" is one of the fundamental dictates of golf. The other is "Wear it if it clashes." ~Henry Beard, Golfing, 1985

I would like to deny all allegations by Bob Hope that during my last game of golf, I hit an eagle, a birdie, an elk and a moose. ~Gerald Ford


The first time I played the Masters, I was so nervous I drank a bottle of rum before I teed off. I shot the happiest 83 of my life. ~Chi Chi Rodriguez

A golf course is nothing but a poolroom moved outdoors. ~Barry Fitzgerald, Going My Way


I'll shoot my age if I have to live to be 105. ~Bob Hope

After all these years, it's still embarrassing for me to play on the American golf tour. Like the time I asked my caddie for a sand wedge and he came back ten minutes later with a ham on rye. ~Chi Chi Rodriguez, on his Puerto Rican accent


My swing is so bad I look like a caveman killing his lunch. ~Lee Trevino

Golf is the cruelest game, because eventually it will drag you out in front of the whole school, take your lunch money and slap you around. ~Rick Reilly, "Master Strokes," Sports Illustrated

Golf is the cruelest of sports. Like life, it's unfair. It's a harlot. A trollop. It leads you on. It never lives up to its promises.... It's a boulevard of broken dreams. It plays with men. And runs off with the butcher. ~Jim Murray

No game designed to be played with the aid of personal servants by right-handed men who can't even bring along their dogs can be entirely good for the soul. ~Bruce McCall, "The Case Against Golf," Esquire

These greens are so fast I have to hold my putter over the ball and hit it with the shadow. ~Sam Snead

Golf is an awkward set of bodily contortions designed to produce a graceful result. ~Tommy Armour

Who watches golf on TV? Who calls eight friends over and gets a keg of beer? Landscapers, I guess. They sit around the TV, yelling, "Will you look at that golf path? Pure pea gravel." ~Jeff Cesario

Golf is a game in which you yell "fore," shoot six, and write down five. ~Paul Harvey

You can't call it a sport. You don't run, jump, you don't shoot, you don't pass. All you have to do is buy some clothes that don't match. ~Steve Sax

Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps. ~Tiger Woods

It's so bad I could putt off a tabletop and still leave the ball halfway down the leg. ~J.C. Snead, on his putting

The uglier a man's legs are, the better he plays golf. It's almost a law. ~H.G. Wells, Bealby, 1915

One of the advantages bowling has over golf is that you seldom lose a bowling ball. ~Don Carter

I'm a golfaholic, no question about that. Counseling wouldn't help me. They'd have to put me in prison, and then I'd talk the warden into building a hole or two and teach him how to play. ~Lee Trevino

My Sunday best is a Wednesday afternoon compared to him. ~Nick Faldo, on John Daly

When I die, bury me on the golf course so my husband will visit. ~Author Unknown