The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.

The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.

Well, they’re Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of walking right in for coffee. But they wouldn’t dream of interrupting you at golf.

Keeping score is for games, not friendships.

Some people take defeat and losses a certain way. You see how some fighters take losses.

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

As long as I stay in training and play well, I don’t see what objection there can be to what I do off the field.

All my life, I’ve been trying to make a hole-in-one. The closest I’ve come is a bogey.

I used to dream about taking the ball ‚round the keeper, stopping it on the line, and then getting on my hands and knees and heading it into the net. When I scored against Benfica in the 1968 European Cup final, I nearly did it. I left the keeper for dead, but then I chickened out.

I hate letting my teammates down. I know I’m not going to make every shot. Sometimes I try to make the right play, and if it results in a loss, I feel awful. I don’t feel awful because I have to answer questions about it. I feel awful in that locker room because I could have done something more to help my teammates win.

It never bothered me when people would say, ‚You only win championships because you’re playing with Shaq.‘ It bothered me when he said it.

I’ve always been an unselfish guy, and that’s the only way I know how to play on the court and I try to play to the maximum of my ability – not only for myself but for my teammates.

The only time my prayers are never answered is on the golf course.

Once you get on the playing field it’s not about whether you’re liked or not liked. All that matters is to play at a high level and do whatever it takes to help your team win. That’s what it’s about.

I am in the fighting game. I don’t care about anything else. I don’t watch the news, I don’t care about politics, I don’t care about other sports. I don’t care about anything I don’t need to care about. This is my sport: it is my life. I study it; I think about it all the time. Nothing else matters.

One rule that will work if it is used everywhere, is that when you have a free-kick, the referee puts the mark on the floor to make sure the defenders keep their distance.

I need to do well and show I’m a worthy driver in F1.

If you’re a quarterback, you want everything on your shoulders. You want to be the one to make the decisions.

I shoot the ball so well that sometimes you fall in love with it and think it’ll get you out of certain situations.

I make impact plays. I make game-changing plays.

Let’s face it. Umpiring is not an easy or happy way to make a living. In the abuse they suffer, and the pay they get for it, you see an imbalance that can only be explained by their need to stay close to a game they can’t resist.

In golf, the player, coach and official are rolled into one, and they overlap completely. Golf really is the best microcosm of life – or at least the way life should be.

Talking to a player helps, but in our sport the majority of learning happens from watching another player. You pick up things like being punctual, being nice to everyone, making sure you give your 100 per cent even in training.

I think that at the start of a game, you’re always playing to win, and then maybe if you’re ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.

You must keep raising this game to higher and higher levels, as on the pool table – mastering eventually the psychological angles. Your playing is a pleasure, all the way to the end, to death, when the game is over.

I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you get so sore at yourself you forget to hate your enemies.

If he’s got golf clubs in his truck or a camper in his driveway, I don’t hire him.

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

I was a very shy character, always feeling uncomfortable because everybody was stronger than I, and always afraid I would look like a sissy. Everybody else played baseball; everybody else did all kinds of athletic things.

The biggest thing is just routine. I think that’s the biggest correlation between golfers and basketball players.

As a kid, even I knew everything about my favourite cricketers. I used to know everything possible. Now I see kids knowing about me. It feels good.

I’m a pretty good winner. I’m a terrible loser. And I rub it in pretty good when I win.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

I’m not feeling very well – I need a doctor immediately. Ring the nearest golf course.

I like the celebrations when I see my teammates do it, when I see fellow footballers on the international scene do it. I think it looks good, it suits most of them, if you know what to do, synchronise, then do it.

Your teammates give you the confidence. They give me the confidence all year, all postseason.

A lot of guys are able to separate how they act off the court versus how they act on the court.

To all the positions, I just bring the determination to win. Me being an unselfish player, I think that can carry on to my teammates. When you have one of the best players on the court being unselfish, I think that transfers to the other players.

A good boxing competition gives one the sight of fine men in their prime, trained to the ounce, showing the highest skill, pluck and endurance in carrying out their attack and defence under strict rules of fair play and good temper.

I’m just glad I play for Coach Belichick.

We all started playing football against our best friends, and I can’t remember a moment where, because it was my best friend, I did not want to win against him.

While playing golf today I hit two good balls. I stepped on a rake.

I always bring out the best in men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I’ll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I’m gonna tell ya, that’s one helluva man, and God bless him.

I used to tease Joe Louis by reminding him that I was the greatest of all time. But Joe Louis was the greatest heavyweight fighter ever.

The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud.

When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were – to the very last minute – a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.

The only thing wrong with the NBA – or any other professional sport, for that matter – is a wild epidemic of Dumbness and overweening Greed. There is no Mystery about it, and no need to change any rules.

One lesson you better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on a golf course and beat the President.

Rule number one is: Beat your team-mate.

In football, it’s the job of the player to play, the coach to coach, the official to officiate. Each guy is charged with upholding his end, nothing more. In golf, the player, coach and official are rolled into one, and they overlap completely. Golf really is the best microcosm of life – or at least the way life should be.

I’ll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it’s sitting on a bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winning shot.

When I step forward on the floor, I have the confidence that I’m the best player playing that night and that I am the most prepared at what I need to be doing.

Losing is not an option in Kolkata. It’s not easy, a lot of players even quit.

It’s the philosophies of being an athlete that carry me today.

Endorsements are a reward for good performance on the field, and the commitments made after signing them need to be done.

Golf without bunkers and hazards would be tame and monotonous. So would life.

I’m not going to fight because I mean too much to our team, and I can’t afford to be suspended for a game or do something stupid to get me kicked out of a playoff game.

I’d be so bored if I wasn’t going out there, knowing that I could still do it. So, I’m going to work hard to be ready to go, and I still plan on playing for a long time.

Before broadcasting for 50-some years, I did TV, played 10 years in the big leagues, won a world championship – and played a big part in that, too, letting the Cardinals inject me with hepatitis. Takes a big man to do that.

I struggle off the tee. If I can hit my driver straight, then I’m usually playing well.

I didn’t mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands.