Phil Mickelson Quotes

Ballybunion is the course on which many golf architects should live and play on before they build golf courses.

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.

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.

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.

Golf course design is exciting.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Well, I think that Augusta is not the same golf course that I grew up on. Bobby Jones' philosophy was giving you space off the tee; if you put it in the right side of the fairway, you ended up getting the right angle to the green.

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.

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

If a course needs to be in great condition to be played effectively, then the design strategy is flawed.

I enjoy hard golf courses.

The reason the Road Hole at St. Andrews is the most difficult par 4 in the world is that it was designed as a par 6.

Golf's Holy Grail - a genius course.

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.