Tom Watson Quotes

It should almost be a prerequisite to play Castle Stuart before you're allowed to design golf courses nowadays.

I've wanted to design golf courses ever since I was a kid. I suppose it comes from the way I've played the game. To find the proper way to play any hole, I've always begun by asking myself what the architect has tried to do with it.

Golf course design is exciting.

The USGA is terrific. I've designed my course in Bedminster to the highest standards of the USGA, and it's a very special course.

Golf course architects make me sick. They can't play themselves, so they rig the courses so nobody else can play either.

A Nicklaus Design golf course is done by the guys in my company that I work with, that have been trained in my vision, and they do what they think I might do. They might come in the office and ask me questions and I'd certainly answer their questions, but I'm not involved in the site visits or anything else.

I try to deign golf courses that are individual in character and individual in their own standing.

Everyone I built a course for thinks they have the best golf course in the world and I'm very pleased and proud of that.

Pete Dye introduced me to golf course design back in the 1960's. He came to my hometown Columbus, Ohio to work on The Golf Club.

Somebody made the statement that Donald Trump has built or owns the greatest collection of golf courses, ever, in the history of golf. And I believe that is 100 percent true.

There are golfers everywhere who may never get a chance to play a links course in Scotland, a tree-lined course in America or the sand belts of Australia. Hopefully I can bring some of those elements into their backyards.

There's more to be learned here [St. Andrews] about course design than anywhere. Collection bunkers, false fronts, bump shots. The fundamentals of design became fundamental because of what's here. And it happened accidentally. Or maybe accidentally on purpose.

I think that (Alister) MacKenzie and I managed to work as a completely sympathetic team. Of course there was never any question that he was the architect and I was the advisor and consultant. No man learns to design a golf course simply by playing golf, no matter how well. But it happened that both of us were extravagant admirers of the Old Course at St Andrews and we both desired as much as possible to simulate seaside conditions insofar as the differences in turf and terrain would allow.

Cape Town's beaches are superb and while the water on the Atlantic side is damn cold, it's very pleasant on the other side. Bring your golf clubs if you play - Cape Town has some fabulous golf courses.

I don't think the philosophy really changes between men and women. I think golf courses need to become more distance-friendly overall. I think golf courses almost need to develop a more generic set of tees instead of calling them black, blue, red or whatever.

Golf courses sell real estate and that's why they're built.

What makes a great golf course is continuity and variety: right-to-left holes, left-to-right holes.

Yet the home courses are where you spend dozens to hundreds of hours a year. You must choose them well.

If I had one golf course, from a design standpoint, one that I really love, it would probably be Pinehurst. There's a totally tree-lined golf course where trees are not a part of the strategy.

Mostly I built golf courses the way I played golf, which was left-to-right. But I learned very rapidly that people wanted to see more than just the way I played golf and that I had to balance up what I was doing, right-to-left, left-to-right, etc.

It's quite nice to play on a golf course that, even though it is links, that there's not much wind, which is good.

St. Andrews is my favorite place to play golf. I've said it many times. I love the design. I love how there is always a bunker in play. And every time you play, it is always a little bit different. There are so many angles out there. It is beautifully designed. And so much fun to play.

I enjoy traveling and playing some of the well-known courses sometimes, but basically, I have a good time at Barton Creek.

The best architects feel it to be their duty to make the path to the hole as free as possible from annoying difficulties for the less skillful golfers, while at the same time presenting to the scratch players a route calling for the best shots at their command.

I'm pretty in tune with everything that happens on the PGA TOUR. Jordan Spieth is my guy. I love watching him play.