Sam Snead famous quotes

Forget your opponents; always play against par.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Play #Opponents

Of all the hazards, fear is the worst.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Hazards #Worst

Practice puts brains in your muscles.
-- Sam Snead

#Inspirational #Golf #Practice

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

#Sports #Golf #Knives

Nobody asked how you looked, just what you shot.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Shots

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

#Golf #Winning #Player

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

#Golf #Balls #Problem

No matter what happens - never give up a hole....In tossing in your cards after a bad beginning you also undermine your whole game, because to quit between tee and green is more habit-forming than drinking a highball before breakfast.
-- Sam Snead

#Giving Up #Drinking #Golf

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

#Golf #Tree #Green

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

#Wrestling #Winning #Desire

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

#Focus #Want #Faults

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

#Sports #Loss #Player

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

#Golf #Shadow #Balls

You can't go into a shop and buy a good game of golf.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Games #Shops

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

#Golf #Long

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

#Golf #Dimes #Whiskey

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.
-- Sam Snead

#Home #Golf #Men

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

#Golf #Lightning #Three

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

#Decision #Preparation #Making Decisions

I looked like a monkey trying to wrestle a football.
-- Sam Snead

#Football #Trying #Monkeys

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.
-- Sam Snead

#Sweet #Hurt #Nice

I was a better player at 50 than I was at 30.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Player

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

#Sports #Real #Play

Golf is played with the arms.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Arms

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.
-- Sam Snead

#Ants #Green #Remember

Those who go along get along.
-- Sam Snead

What abandoned course is that?
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Abandoned

I've gotten rid of the yips four times but they hang in there. You know those two-foot downhill putts with a break? I'd rather see a rattlesnake.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Two #Feet

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

#Golf

The fact that Slammin' Sammy couldn't win the Open made it all the more valuable for the players that did win. Gave it a special quality. I'd say a part of the sheen on that trophy comes from my sweat.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Winning #Player

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

#Golf #Play #Sick

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.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Thinking #Age

The only place that's holier than St. Andrews is Westminster Abbey.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Andrew #Westminster Abbey

But, no, I don't feel my career has not been fulfilled because I didn't win the US Open. It's like the guy said: You going to crucify a man because he missed a putt to win a tournament? Does a three-foot putt mean his whole life? Another guy said, well, he couldn't win the big one. Well, Jesus, what do you call those others? What's big and what's small?
-- Sam Snead

#Jesus #Mean #Golf

Over the years I've studied the habits of golfers. I know what to look for. Watch their eyes. Fear shows up when there is an enlargement of the pupils. Big pupils lead to big scores.
-- Sam Snead

#Eye #Golf #Years

That little white ball is always staring back at you, daring you to make a mistake.
-- Sam Snead

#Mistake #White #Littles

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.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Mind #Floating

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.
-- Sam Snead

#Real #Golf #Thinking

First and fore-most, you must have confidence. Your second mental problem is concentration. Think the shot through in advance before you address the ball. Draw a mental image of where you want it to go and then eliminate everything else from your mind, except how you are going to get the ball into that preferred spot.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Thinking #Mind

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

#Golf #Past #Boys

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

#Golf #Play #Balls

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

#Golf #Thinking #Shoes

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

#Drinking #Golf #Breakfast

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

#Golf #Answers #Clubs

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

#Golf #Nine #Lasts

Thinking instead of acting is the number one golf disease.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Thinking #Numbers

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.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Elephants #Feet

'You know Bobby, when I was your age I'd drive the ball right over those trees at the corner.' Feeling challenged Mr. Cole hit a big driver right into those big trees. Snead then said 'Of course, when I was your age, those trees were only 10 feet high.'
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Feet #Tree

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.
-- Sam Snead

#Believe #Golf #Winning

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

#Golf #Three #Quitting

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

#Golf #Firsts #Reason

The fairways were so narrow you had to walk down them single file.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Walks

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

#Baby #Bird #Clubs

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.
-- Sam Snead

#Distance #Golf #Indifference

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

#Golf #Eating

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

#Hazards #Anticipation #Scared

When I swing at a golf ball right, my mind is blank and my body is loose as a goose.
-- Sam Snead

#Golf #Swings #Mind

Good golfing temperament falls between taking it with a grin or shrug and throwing a fit.
-- Sam Snead

#Fall #Golf #Fit