Ken Venturi Quotes

“After you have the basics down it's all mental.”

“All of my decisions I made when I was a kid were decisions, would my mother and father be proud of.”

“I began seeing my wife, Kathleen, while I was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer.”

“I couldn't say my own name when I was 12.”

“I don’t believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be.”

“I had a terrible stammering problem when I was young, and as a result I spent a lot of time alone.”

“My father always said excuses are the crutches for the untalented.”

“My father taught me that the easiest thing to do was to quit. He'd say, 'It doesn't take any talent to do that.'”

“My father was a man of few words.”

“People thought I was cocky because I didn't talk much. When I first turned pro, reporters asked me who was going to win. I'd say, 'I am' because it was easier than giving some long, drawn-out answer.”

“Retirement isn't so bad. Give me a tall drink, a plush sofa and a rerun of 'Matlock,' and you can have the rest. Matlock is my hero. He never loses.”

“Sometimes you try to make it happen instead of just letting it happen.”

“The greatest gift in life is to be remembered.”

“The hardest thing in golf is trying to two-putt when you have to, because your brain isn't wired that way. You're accustomed to trying to make putts, and when you change that mind-set, your brain short-circuits, especially under pressure.”

“The only times you touch the ball with your hand are when you tee it up and when you pick it out of the cup. The hell with television towers and cables and burrowing animals and the thousand and one things that are referred to as ‘not part of the golf course’. If you hit the ball off the fairway, you play it from there.”

“There are two great rules of life:
1) Never tell everything at once.”

“Victory is everything. You can spend the money but you can never spend the memories.”

“When my father spoke, it was to say something meaningful.”

“You can’t make good scores happen. You’ve got to let it happen.”

“All of us have an inner clock, a certain pace at which we function most comfortably and effectively.”