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I never thought about being No. 1. I just kept trying to be No. 1.

Jack Nicklaus

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Jack Nicklaus
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: January 21
Architect
Golfer
Landscape Architect
Columbus
Ohio
Golden Bear
Jack William Nicklaus
William Nicklaus
Bear
Karnak
Thought
Trying
Never
Kept

More quotes by Jack Nicklaus

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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.
Jack Nicklaus
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We don't play golf often [with kids] because they don't play that much anymore - because their kids don't play. It's like anything else - fathers these days end up in the parks on the weekends and they have their kids into lacrosse or soccer or whatever it might be.
Jack Nicklaus
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Well, the biggest rival I had in my career was me.
Jack Nicklaus
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The fact is, I diet every day of my life. I have to work at it. But I diet so I can pig out.
Jack Nicklaus
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I'm deadly serious even when I play tennis against my kids. I want to beat their brains out.
Jack Nicklaus
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Essentially, he has been retired since he was 21.
Jack Nicklaus
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I was never satisfied if I didn't win a major. I mean, not that year or any major I played, I wasn't satisfied unless I won it. But that's what our goals are. I'm sure that these guys' goals are the same as mine. They want to win every time they play. If you don't win, then you're not happy, obviously.
Jack Nicklaus
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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.
Jack Nicklaus
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Augusta National is a young man's golf course, and you really need a young man's nerves to play on it.
Jack Nicklaus
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I love the golf courses because it brought the best out of me. It made me prepare, made me work at it, made me do the things I needed to do to be better, and that's what I loved about USGA events. If you couldn't handle it, then you got beat, and that's OK.
Jack Nicklaus
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But if I played well and prepared myself properly, then all I had to do was control myself and put myself in a position to win.
Jack Nicklaus
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Temper is the one thing you can't get rid of by losing it.
Jack Nicklaus
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That's sort of overkill. We've had 70 years of the Ryder Cup, and it's gotten along just fine. The pendulum will swing back without making a monumental thing about it.
Jack Nicklaus
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If I had only one more round to play, I would choose to play it at Pebble Beach. I've loved this course from the first time I saw it. It's possibly the best in the world.
Jack Nicklaus
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Why are we building golf courses? Because we enjoy being outside, bringing man and nature together.
Jack Nicklaus
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We don’t have to do a bunch of things to figure out how to win the Ryder Cup. Just go play golf. ... I’m a little bit too casual probably about a lot of things, but you can’t force good play. Good play comes from good hard work and actually being prepared to play, not being forced to play.
Jack Nicklaus
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I never missed a putt in my mind.
Jack Nicklaus
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We also play a Father/Son at home and I play with Steve, too. I try to mix it up. We play two or three times a year, but that's about it.
Jack Nicklaus
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I've had a lot of majors where I didn't play well until the last round. Keep yourself in contention that's the name of the game. I usually ended up shooting a good round and all of a sudden, somehow, I won.
Jack Nicklaus
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I learned early in my career, where you get so wrapped up and so excited, that all of a sudden you don't think. So I worked very hard to keep myself suppressed. And that's one of the reasons I wasn't gregarious with the gallery.
Jack Nicklaus