This week I am playing in the 90th Annual Resorters Invitational Golf Tournament here in Alexandria Minnesota and it got me to thinking about how others throughout history have characterized this game that I and many love. Following are a few quotes from notables that I think put a frame around the picture that is golf.

Winston Churchill said about golf; “Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly  ill-defined for the purpose”

Arnold Palmer said; “Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented .”

Mark Twain said when talking about golf; “A good walk spoiled” (his definition of golf). on another occasion he said “It’s good sportsmanship not to pick up lost balls while they are still rolling.”

Will Rogers must’ve been watching a recent opponent what he said; “Golf is a wonderful exercise.  You can stand on your feet for hours, watching somebody else putt. ”

From  former President Dwight D Eisenhower; “How has retirement if affected my golf game? A lot more people beat me now .”

Some days I think that Winston Churchill’s quote on Russia applies to my game; “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”  Or maybe that is my golf swing?

When we think of golf we are generally talking about courses and their length and layout but maybe the best definition comes to us from Bobby Jones; “Competitive golf is played mainly on a 5-and-a-half-inch course … the space between our ears.” By the way, that is also where the wind blows the hardest.

Ben Crenshaw followed up on Bobby Jones, “I am about 5 inches from being an outstanding golfer.  That’s the distance  my left ear is from my right.”

Two more from Mark Twain, they have nothing to do with golf but I like them; “It is best to read a weather forecast before we pray for rain.” and “My body is my own, at least I have always so regarded it. If I do harm … it is I who suffers not the state”

And in closing; “If profanity had an influence on the flight of the ball, the game of golf would be played far better than it is.” Horace G Hutchinson