The Best Quotes on the Top Courses! #5 is Classic!
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After a practice round before the British Open, one of the reporters asked Lee, "How did you find the course?" Lee's reply was, "I walked out the locker room, and there it was!" His classic remark about Merion Golf Club - "I love Merion, and I don't even know her last name." When Lee Westwood first saw Whistling Straits, he said, “I'd been told there are 10 difficult holes and eight impossible ones. I'm still trying to work out which the 10 difficult holes are." So what are the other quotes that have emerged over the years? Joe Passov for GOLF.com gives us some classic quotes from celebrity golfers about the top courses on the planet!
Despite their vaunted status, many of the world's greatest golf courses can inspire frustration, rage, and awe in even the best players; some inspire all three simultaneously. Ask any Tour pro or celebrity amateur golfer for their opinion about a Top 100 golf course, and you usually elicit a funny, clever, or occasionally nasty retort. Here are some of the best quips ever about our greatest courses.
1. Cypress Point Club, Pebble Beach, Calif.
"Cypress Point is such a beautiful place, but it's also very exclusive. They had a very successful membership drive last month. They drove out forty members." -- Bob Hope
Photo: Mike Ehrmann For Sports Illustrated
2. Oakmont Country Club, Oakmont, Pa.
"(Oakmont possesses) all the charm of a sock to the head." -- Gene Sarazen
Photo: Fred Vuich
3. Augusta National Golf Club, Augusta, GA.
"This course is like playing a Salvador Dali landscape. I expected a clock to fall out of the trees and hit me in the face." -- David Feherty
Photo: Fred Vuich For Sports Illustrated
4. Ballybunion Old. Ballybunion, Ireland.
"After playing Ballybunion for the first time, a man would think that the game of golf originated here." -- Tom Watson
5. Merion Golf Club (East), Ardmore, Pa.
"I love Merion and I don't even know her last name." -- Lee Trevino
6. Whistling Straits (Straits), Haven, Wisc.
When Lee Westwood first saw the course he said, “I'd been told there are 10 difficult holes and eight impossible ones. I'm still trying to work out which the 10 difficult holes are."
7. Spyglass Hill Golf Course, Pebble Beach, Calif.
"If it were human, Spyglass would have a knife in its teeth, a patch on its eye, a ring in its ear, tobacco in its beard and a blunderbuss in its hand." -- Jim Murray, Hall-of-Fame sportswriter
8. Hazeltine National Golf Club, Chaska, Minn.
When asked during the 1970 U.S. Open what the course lacked, Dave Hill famously responded, “Eighty acres of corn and a few cows. They ruined a good farm when they built this course."
9. Oak Hill Country Club (East), Rochester, N.Y.
"If I owned a Rembrandt and it had some dull colors, I don't think I'd go put reds and yellows in there just to brighten it up. I feel the same way about old golf courses. When you have a masterpiece, I sure wouldn't tinker with it." -- Raymond Floyd, ahead of the 1989 U.S. Open, commenting on Tom Fazio's pre-1980 changes to the course
10. Castle Stuart Golf Club, Inverness, Scotland
"It should almost be a prerequisite to play Castle Stuart before you're allowed to design golf courses nowadays." -- Phil Mickelson at the 2011 Scottish Open
