Many shots are spoiled at the last instant by efforts to add a few more yards.
Bobby JonesRead
I get as much fun as the next man from whaling the ball as hard as I can and catching it squarely on the button. But from sad experience I learned not to try this in a round that meant anything.
Interpretation
Enjoy the thrill of the game but understand the importance of playing strategically.
Bobby Jones emphasizes the balance between enjoying sports and recognizing when a more thoughtful approach is needed. He reflects on the joy of hitting a golf ball well but warns that reckless enthusiasm can be detrimental in serious situations, suggesting that fun should not come at the expense of skill and strategy in competitive play.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a sportsmanship speech at a youth sports event.
Many shots are spoiled at the last instant by efforts to add a few more yards.
There isn't a hole out there [Augusta] that can't be birdied if you just think. But there isn't one that can't be double-bogeyed if you stop thinking.
The real way to enjoy playing golf is to take pleasure not in the score, but in the execution of strokes.
As I see it, the thing that hurt my putting most when it was bad, was thinking too much about how I was making the stroke and not enough about getting the ball in the hole.
The 'enemy' in golf is tension.
Golf is a game that is played on a five-inch course
It is the privilege of genius that life never grows common place, as it does for the rest of us.
If you want to be wisely selfish, care for others
Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.
It is not enough that your designs, nay that your actions, are intrinsically good, you must take care they shall appear so.
If we treasure our own experience and regard it as real, we must also treasure other people's experience.
I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things. As far as I can conjecture the art consists in habitually searching for the causes and meaning of everything which occurs.
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