Sam Snead Quotes

Forget your opponents; always play against par.

Of all the hazards, fear is the worst.

There is an old saying: if a man comes home with sand in his cuffs and cockleburs in his pants, don't ask him what he shot.

If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork the way they do a golf club, they'd starve to death.

You've just one problem. You stand too close to the ball after you've hit it.

Practice puts brains in your muscles.

Keep close count of your nickels and dimes, stay away from whiskey, and never concede a putt.

In golf, as in life, you get out of it what you put into it.

I believe in destiny...what's going to be is going to be. If I'm going to win, I'm going to win...I don't give a damn what the other guy shoots. I'm going to win if it's my turn.

Never let up. The more you can win by, the more doubts you put in the other players' minds the next time out.

What abandoned course is that?

The mark of a great player is in his ability to come back. The great champions have all come back from defeat.

Make the basic shot-making decision early, clearly and firmly, and then ritualize all the necessary acts of preparation.

Golf course architects make me sick. They can't play themselves, so they rig the courses so nobody else can play either.

If I could have shot 69 in the last round every time, I would have won nine U.S. Opens. Nine!

Most people who play golf have one big trouble: they think too much. To get any real mileage out of this game you've got to sit on your imagination.

Don't just play your way around the course. Think your way around way around the course.

There are no short hitters on the tour anymore - just long and unbelievably long.

I shot a wild elephant in Africa thirty yards from me, and it didn't hit the ground until it was right at my feet. I wasn't a bit scared. But a four foot putt scares me to death.

You have more potential than you think.

Golf tip: Lay off for three weeks and then quit for good.

Golf got complicated when I had to wear shoes and begin thinking about what I was doing.

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

The only reason I ever played in the first place was so I could afford to hunt and fish.

What did I want with prestige? The British Open paid the winner $600 in American money. A man would have to be two hundred years old at that rate to retire from golf.

Practice your swing until it becomes a habit of mind and muscle.

If I had cleared the trees and drove the green, it would've been a great shot.

Of the mental hazards, being scared is the worst. When you get scared, you get tense.

To win you must have talent and desire ­ but desire is first.

But you don't have to go up in the stands and play your foul balls. I do.

When I ask you what club to use, look the other way and don't answer.

Nobody asked how you looked, just what you shot.

I give the ball some sweet talk. I tell it that this isn't going to hurt a bit. I'm a friend and all I'm going to do is give it a nice little ride.

To be consistently effective, you must put a certain distance between yourself and what happens to you on the golf course. This is not indifference, it's detachment.

The three things I fear most in golf are lightning, Ben Hogan and a downhill putt.

I looked like a monkey trying to wrestle a football.

Until you play it, St. Andrews looks like the sort of real estate you couldn't give away.

Golf is played with the arms.

I've said a thousand times, you can't go into a shop and buy a good golf game.

I hope I'll never get too old to want to take part in this event, and I don't think I will ever age that much.

To quit between tee and green is more habit-forming than drinking a highball before breakfast.

I've been on some fairways that are as good as the greens we putted on back then. We had crab grass. I remember one green where I putted through ants.

Correct one fault at a time. Concentrate on the one fault you want to overcome.

I'd say that golf is about 75% mental. If your state of mind gets out of kilter, you're worse off than a tomcat floating on a log.

Grip the club as if you were holding a baby bird.

A bad putter is like a bad apple in a barrel. First, it turns your chipping game sour. Then it begins to eat into your irons and finally it just cleans the head off your driver.

Thinking instead of acting is the number one golf disease.

Playing golf is like eating. It's something which has to come naturally.

Just have a Coke or something and watch the boys go past.

I was a better player at 50 than I was at 30.