I never felt I could be a complete professional without having won the British Open. It was something you had to do to complete your career.
I have won the Australian, I won the British, all PGA championships, but I haven’t won the PGA championship.
I think today’s athletes generally are spoiled by what’s happened to salaries, but I also think that golfers have maintained the best demeanor of any sport.
If the athlete is fair with the press, he deserves fairness back.
For years I did take my time, but that was because I hated waiting to hit shots – I adopted a pace where I didn’t have to stand by my ball and wait.
I played high school golf, I played amateur golf and I started getting officers. I was playing pretty good, won amateur tournaments as a junior, and the whole thing.
That’s another thing about my father. He made me very conscious of the fact I wasn’t very good and I had to prove to him that I was good. And that hung with me, and I always wanted to play golf with him and show him. He said Never, Never tell anyone how good you are. Show them!
It is such a disappointment in American political reaction and actions. When some of our politicians are flying around the country in private airplanes all the time, using public services as their mode of private transportation, and then criticizing us who are in business.
All the things that I have derived either directly or indirectly through the game of golf are things I owe a great deal to the game and to the people who support the game.
I enjoy the press. I understand their business.
I’ve always been a big thinker that the more international competition that we create through sports the better relationships we’ll have with countries.
My father started on this golf course at Latrobe when he was sixteen years old. He was digging ditches when they were building the golf course.
I like the Miami because I could play golf all winter.
I wanted to emulate my father. I wanted to be as tough as he was. I wanted to do the things that he did. I watched him.
I was born in 1929, that was the depression, so the golf course was manned by my father and two guys, they worked for my dad and they took me with them everywhere they went. And it was fun.
I was playing golf in Palm Springs and after a round I asked the waitress in a restaurant to bring me a glass of iced tea and lemonade. A lady sitting nearby heard me and asked the waitress to bring her a “Palmer,” too. The name caught on and the beverage quickly spread around the country.
I love America. I wanted to play golf.
I always said that if I have the perfect club then I should play the perfect game.
I was playing cowboys and Indians in the trees, and then I started hitting the golf club with clubs father sawed off for me, and I began playing right here with my father.
I know, win or lose, I enjoyed the prospect of giving it my all.
I always knew what was most important to me. When I was growing up, nothing was more important than golf, but that’s the attitude of a young person who hasn’t a care in the world. Later on I figured it out. Family was first. Always. Then golf and business come after.