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Twenty majors if you count his two U.S. Amateurs, in stone the winner for all time. Champions great and small have sought his counsel in clubhouses and terraces across the world. Nicklaus started writing for Golf Digest in the early 1970s. What follows are some of his most enduring words that have appeared in our magazine across four decades. —Max Adler

Learn, practice and trust one basic swing. Most golfers, and especially those who begin the game as adults, pick it up and then continue to play by trial and error, rather than by formally learning one basic method.

1. I’ve always believed the club should dominate you instead of you dominating the club.
2. To me, winning by one is the same as winning by 10.
3. Aim and alignment are by far the most important elements of the act of moving a golf ball from A to B. Rub the magic lamp, get the genie to give you any golf swing of your choice from history, and, if you don’t direct it correctly from the beginning, it still won’t reduce your present score by even one measly stroke.
4. Even the gutsiest players learn they can’t try the hero shot all the time.
5. You first have to see the trouble, then think positively about playing away from it. Some players might say they just “let it happen.” Well, you don’t ever just let it happen.
6. I hold the club fairly loosely, but just before starting back, I press my hands together on the grip once or twice. I call this a “stationary press.”
7. The harder I want to hit a shot, the slower I try to begin the swing.
8. The fuller your backswing, the longer it takes to execute, which can help your tempo. Longer swingers, I’ve noticed, usually enjoy longer-lasting careers.
9. I believe the Ryder Cup is an exhibition by some of the best golfers in the world, great entertainment and an exercise in sportsmanship, camaraderie and goodwill. The individual performances, good or bad, don’t determine who the best players in the world are. Nor does the side that happens to win determine on what side of the Atlantic the best golf is played. Too many people believe otherwise, and that helps make the matches too contentious among the teams and their fans.
10. One of my lifelong checkpoints is to keep the shaft between my arms throughout the swing.
11. Practice hitting as fully as you can without letting either heel lift at any point in the swing. This will teach you the proper way to shift weight by rolling your ankles, but most of all it will teach you the feeling of staying “centered.”
12. I believe it’s impossible for me to hit too soon with the clubhead. When I need a through-swing thought, it’s most often, Release! Use the clubhead!
13. Although I have great affection for the Masters, as far as pure golf I’d rather play in the British Open than any other event.
14. Patience was always my strength. When a player says a course doesn’t suit him, he’s half beaten right there.
15. On most courses, there are only five or six shots where you really need to pay attention and play conservative.
16. When I putt, I hold my breath just before initiating the stroke to keep my head and body still.
17. I visualize the putter shaft as being extremely limber, almost as flexible as a length of rope, which means the only way I can get the clubhead to swing truly is to stroke putts very softly.
18. I know I have to make the putt. There is no alternative. It has to go in. That was my focus.
19. I always like to have a couple of short 4s on my courses. They create variety and make the golfer think.
20. With so much money in the pro game, conservative mediocrity sort of prevails. The goal is to make a good living more than it is to win. Yes, there’s a lot of depth in the pro game. If you took a large group of today’s players and put them against the group from my prime, today’s group would probably beat their brains out. But I think our four or five top guys, as a group, would have beaten the brains out of the players of today.
21. It’s not that I wouldn’t get nervous, but I could always think straight under pressure. I know some people tend to go blank.
22. On a second-shot course, you use the tee shot to truly create your second. This type of design happens to be my favorite.
23. If you start with the club grounded, the natural tendency is for it to return to that spot at impact. In other words, you’re pre-setting a fat shot.
24. I shot my age for the first time at 64 in Hawaii.
25. I never hit a shot, even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head. It’s like a color movie.
26. The key to playing well is to first understand who you are as a person, and then manage that.
27. I’m finding now, more than ever, that the game of a lifetime can give you the time of your life without ever striking a shot.
28. I know I have to make the putt. There is no alternative. It has to go in.

Source: golfdigest.com

There was more than a little bit of stumbling and fumbling along the way, but Justin Rose eventually claimed the Turkish Airlines Open title in a playoff with Li Haotong. The pair, two-thirds of the final group on the final day, had earlier tied on 17 under par over four rounds at the Regnum Carya Golf & Spa Resort on Turkey’s southern shore.

Which sounds pretty good only until a wee bit more detailed look at the leader board reveals Rose reached 19 under par after 70 holes. And that both men were 18 under on the 72nd tee. In other words, Rose, the defending champion and needing a win to get back to World No. 1, finished bogey-bogey; Li contented himself with a dropped shot at the last, taking four shots to get down from just under 150 yards. Pretty this was not.

And it got worse.

After watching Rose two-putt for par from roughly 25 feet on their second visit to the 18th green, Li settled down over his 12-footer for birdie and what would have been his third European Tour victory. Would have been. Never online, the ball missed low and left and, not insignificantly as things turned out, ran maybe a yard past. The second putt was … how to put this … awful. Really awful, the ball missing the cup by maybe an inch on the right.

The sad thing was, over their first 16 holes, both men had put on a terrific display. Yes, each rode his luck at times, but the general standard gave no hint of the carnage that was to follow. Li’s pars at the seventh and eighth holes had more to do with good luck than good judgement. Rose’s pitch to the par-5 12th was headed well past until it struck the pin and stopped a few feet away. And one hole later his tee shot was headed for oblivion in the right trees until it hit an unfortunate individual on the left knee (yes, Rose did shout “fore!”).

Otherwise, each played some terrific stuff. Li’s highlight was a 3-wood to the par-5 15th green that pulled to a halt no more than two-feet away, the resulting eagle hauling the Chinese player into a tie for the lead on 18 under par.

Rose was his usual clinical self—at least until his last two holes in regulation. Not one bogey and five birdies dotted his card to that point.

“There were moments out there where it looked like both of us weren’t holding our nerve very well,” said Rose, who picked up €1,166,660 for what was the first successful defense of a title in his career. He also moved to third in a Race to Dubai, although he cannot win that year-long race to go with his FedEx Cup title on the PGA Tour. For reasons he was loathe to reveal—“they will become apparent next year”—Rose said rather mysteriously that he will not be playing in the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in two weeks.

“But this was a fun battle overall,” he continued. “And obviously I do have to spare a thought for Haotong. That was a tough way to finish. He hit a positive putt to try and win, but that 18th green is very tough. Getting back to No. 1 is something to be proud of. It doesn’t make you one under par on the first tee the next time you play, but it’s something to be proud of for sure.”

As for Li, who had started the day with a three-shot edge over Rose, even his broken English was up to the task of conveying exactly his understandable disappointment.

“It is a tough day for me,” said the 23-year old, who memorably outdueled Rory McIlroy down the stretch to win the Dubai Desert Classic in January. “I think I played well the whole week, but didn’t hole a few putts on the last and that was it.”

A little further down the leader board there were signs of redemption for two Grand Slam champions whose recent play has been more minor than major. Former U.S. Open and PGA champion Martin Kaymer’s closing 66, five under par and bogey-free, lifted the German into a tie for fifth alongside Lucas Bjerregaard of Denmark, one shot head of Danny Willett.

“I played very well,” confirmed Kaymer, who dropped only two shots all week. “I could have made a few more putts here and there, but the game was really spot on this week. I think I gave myself enough chances, and I needed a good finish to get into (the season ending DP World Tour Championship) in Dubai. Hopefully that was enough. But I’m really looking forward to playing next week [when the European Tour plays its next playoff event in his native South Africa]. I’m very close.”

Former Masters champion Willett had less to say about his T-7 finish, but the Englishman, one of 20 in the 78-man field, must have been encouraged by his play after so long in the doldrums. In recording his third top-10 of the season and only his fifth on the European Tour since winning at Augusta in 2016, the 31-year-old Yorkshireman hit an array of splendid shots. As with Kaymer, only his putting let him down over the closing holes.

Which was a familiar tale at the end of an ultimately strange day.

Source: golfdigest.com