“Prayer never works for me on the golf course. That may have something to do with my being a terrible putter.”
—The Rev. Billy Graham
“I'm a golfer, not an athlete.”
—Lee Westwood
“Golf is the most over-taught and least-learned human endeavor. If they taught sex the way they teach golf, the race would have died out years ago.”
—Jim Murray, Golf Magazine
There Are Few Atheists in a Bunker: A poll found that, whether religious or not, 75 percent of professional golfers admitted to praying on the golf course.
“Pick up the ball and have the clubs destroyed immediately.”
—Viscount Castleross to his caddy after a series of bad shots
A golf course is about the last place you want to be during a thunderstorm. Ask Lee Trevino, who was struck by lightning during the 1975 Western Open: “There was a thunderous crack like cannon fire and suddenly I was lifted a foot and a half off the ground. ‘Damn,’ I thought to myself, ‘this is a helluva penalty for slow play.’” Trevino's advice about surviving a lightning storm? “Hold up a 1-iron and walk. Even God can't hit a 1-iron.” Don't really try it, of course—he was joking.
“The least thing upsets him on the links. He misses short putts because of the uproar of the butterflies in the adjoining meadows.”
—P. G. Wodehouse, describing a very sensitive golfer
“That little white ball won't move 'til you hit it, and there's nothing you can do after it's gone.”
—Babe Didrikson Zaharias
“It took me seventeen years to get 3,000 hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.”
—Hank Aaron, Baseball Hall of Famer
“The hardest shot is a mashie at 90 yards from the green where the ball has to be played against an oak tree, bounces back into a sand trap, hits a stone, bounces on the green, and then rolls into the cup. The shot is so difficult I have made it only once.”
—Zeppo Marx
“The hardest shot in golf ? I find it to be the hole-in-one.”
—Groucho Marx
“There are two reasons for making a hole-in-one. The first is that it is immensely laborsaving.”
—H. I. Phillips, writer/composer
“I was three over—one over a house, one over a patio, and one over a swimming pool.”
—George Brett, baseball star
“I've heard of unplayable lies, but on the tee?”
—Bob Hope
“We're playing a game where the aim is to be below par. It's so wrong for me.”
—Stephanie Vanderkellen, character on the TV showNewhart
Golf historians credit the late Tommy Armour, a winner of both the U.S. and British Open championships, with coining the word yips to describe the condition of so-called putter's block. He described the yips as “that ghastly time the golfer blacks out, loses sight of the ball and hasn't the remotest idea of what to do with the putter.” He wasn't joking—the “yips” forced him into early retirement.
“The average expert player hits 6, 8, or 10 real good shots in a round. The rest are real good misses.”
—Tommy Armour
Order an extra-large bucket of balls at a driving range and you'll typically get 150 balls. A medium bucket yields 65; a small, 35.
“Playing in the U.S. Open is like tippy-toeing through hell.”
—Jerry McGee
Double eagles—three strokes under par—are rarer than holes in one. The reason is that holes-in-one are usually made on short holes, requiring only one accurate long shot. A double eagle requires a par-5 hole, meaning that to get one you need to hit two long shots accurately.
I: Harry Leach, on May 26, 1954, hit a drive that went much farther than he'd expected. When he teed off at St. Andrews in Scotland, his ball went out of bounds. When Leach went to find the ball, it seemed the ball had ended up in a dump truck. The dump truck took off and headed straight for the city heap, over a mile away. Let's just say Harry opted to take the penalty instead of play the ball.
II: Nils Lied sounds like a name that begins a tall, tall tale. Instead, sit back and listen to a long one. Nils, a meteorologist from Australia, was camped at base in the Antarctic. Bored with the ice and snow, Nils whiled away the time by practicing his drives and chip shots. On one particular day, the golf gods smiled on Nils and sent his ball a-sliding on the ice. The ball traveled a total of a mile and a half (2,640 yards) before it stopped.
III: Alan Shepard, famous moon golfer, also has the honor of belonging to this very prestigious club. His first shot on the moon went nowhere. His second attempt bounced about 2 feet. His third drive, however, sent his ball flying for miles and miles, says Shepard.
IV: Okay, so this entry's drive didn't technically go a mile, but because it went into the next city, it qualifies as something. Otis Guernsey was at the ninth hole on the Apawanis Golf Club in Rye, New York. When he teed off, his ball shot off in the wrong direction and landed on the eleventh hole … of the neighboring Green Meadows Golf Course, in Harrison, New York.
The longest successful putt in the history of the Masters Tournament was made by pro Nick Faldo in 1989. It was a whopping 100 feet long.