Jim Apfelbaum - 1,001 Pearls of Golfers Wisdom: Advice and Knowledge, from Tee to Green

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ISBN: 978-1-61608-354-0
Printed in China Golf is my life, and I have been around the game for as long as I can remember. I was three years old when I first started hitting balls, and I spent a lot of time around the sport as a young boy, mostly because my father was the head professional and greens keeper at the Latrobe Country Club in Pennsylvania.

I'd ride in his lap while he was mowing the fairways with his tractor and eat lunch with him under the shade trees that grew on the course. Years later, when I was 12, I entered my first junior golf tournament and went on to play on the Latrobe High School team. Then, I was off to Wake Forest, at which point I had won a few amateur tournaments and started playing more on a national level. By the time I turned professional in 1955, I had won more than my fair share of titles, among them the Ohio Amateur, and best of all, the U.S. Amateur. And during my stints on both the regular and senior PGA Tours in the years to follow, I finished first in 73 events and added another 19 titles in non-sanctioned tournaments at home and abroad.

But for me golf was not only about playing in tournaments. I've always enjoyed a simple afternoon round with friends, and to this day, I love any excuse to play. In fact, it sometimes feels as if I have played every day of my adult life. And truth be told, that is not so far off. All of this is to say that I have been around the game for a very long time. Andrews. Andrews.

I have also heard more than my share of thoughts and comments on the sport, both on the course and at the 19th hole afterwards, and the hilarity of those words as well as the depth of their meaning are what prompted me to write this Foreword. For golf is often as much about the interaction with your friends as it is the shots we are playing, and enjoying the way players are able to laugh at themselves as they chuckle atand withothers. It is also about reading accounts of what happens to other people when they tee it up, whether for fun or in competition, and the things that come out of their mouths. Because we, as golfers, say the darndest things. There is so much in this volume that will make you laugh, starting with comments from comedic geniuses like Bill Murray, Bob Hope, and David Feherty and moving to longtime journalistic observers of the game, such as Grantland Rice, Peter Dobereiner, and the fellow who wrote my biography a few years ago, Jim Dodson. The words of Buddy Hackett and Leslie Nielsen have understandably found their way into this book, and even men and women who are not noted for their wit and humor can bring down the house when the subject is golf.

For example, Hank Aaron is not exactly a star at stand-up. But he can induce more than a few giggles when he says things like: It took me 17 years to get 3,000 hits in baseball. I did that in one afternoon on the golf course. But this publication of quotes is not only about laughs. It is also about insight into the game, from men like Ben Hogan and Bobby Jones who knew it intimately. It provides deeper takes on life itself, from the likes of Winston Churchill, President George H.W.

Bush, and John D. Rockefeller. It even has a few lines from yours truly, as well as pearls of wisdom and wit from a few of my old competitors, like Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player as well as Billy Casper and Chi-Chi Rodriguez. Culled from a variety of sources and edited by Jim Apfelbaum, they are sure to delight fans of the game for years to come. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. Arnold Palmer

Golf is life.

If you can't take golf, you can't take life. Anonymous Golf is a game whose aim it is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose. Winston Churchill Golf is the cruelest of sports. Like life, it's unfair. It's a harlot. A trollop.

It leads you on. It never lives up to its promises It's a boulevard of broken dreams. It plays with men. And runs off with the butcher. Jim Murray Golf is an open exhibition of overweening ambition, courage deflated by stupidity, skill soured by a whiff of arrogance. Alistair Cooke Golf is a funny game.

It's done much for health and at the same time has ruined people by robbing them of their peace of mind. Look at me, I'm the healthiest idiot in the world. Bob Hope Golf is the only game in which a precise knowledge of the rules can earn one a reputation for bad sportsmanship. Patrick Campbell Golf is like life in a lot of ways: The most important competition is the one against yourself. All the biggest wounds are selfinflicted. And you get a lot of breaks you don't deserve, both ways.

So it's important not to get too upset when you're having a bad day. Bill Clinton Golf is not a funeral, though both can be very sad affairs. Bernard Darwin They say that life is a lot like golfdon't believe them. Golf is a lot more complicated. Gardner Dickinson They call it golf because all of the other four- letter words were taken. Raymond Floyd Golf is wonderful exercise.

You can stand on your feet for hours, watching somebody else putt. Will Rogers Golf is the only game where the worst player gets the best of it. He gets more out of it with regard to both exercise and enjoyment. The good player worries over the slightest mistake, whereas the poor player makes too many mistakes to worry over them. David Lloyd George, British PM Golf is a game that needlessly prolongs the lives of some of our most useless citizens. Bob Hope Happiness is a long walk with a putter in your hand.

Wayne Grady A good one iron shot is about as easy to come by as an understanding wife. Dan Jenkins Golf is more fun than walking naked in a strange place, but not much. Buddy Hackett Golf is an ineffectual attempt to put an elusive ball into an obscure hole with implements ill- adapted to the purpose. Woodrow Wilson Playing golf is like raising children: You keep thinking you'll do better next time. Roy McKie Local rules in golf: a set of regulations that are ignored by players on a specific course rather than by golfers as a whole. E.C.

McKenzie Golf is like any other sports competition. There is not a whole lot of point to it unless someone suffers. Kevin Wohl Golf is the Esperanto of sport. All over the world, golfers talk the same languagemuch of it nonsense and much unprintableendure the same frustrations, discover the same infallible secrets of putting, share the same illusory joys. Henry Longhurst This is just a game. That's all it is.

It's not a war. Jack Nicklaus Golf is a game not just of manners but of morals. Art Spander Great southpaw golfers are more scarce than a clear day in Los Angeles. Joe Schwendeman Golf keeps the heart young and the eyes clear. Andrew Kirkaldy Golf is like faith: it is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Dr. Irving A. Irving A.