The Masters Mystique ## A collection of quotes and anecdotes on strategy, pressure and the unique character of the Masters
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Paul Azinger
"This place always seems to have some kind of a ghost waiting around a pine tree or something for me. I remember all the places I don't want to be."
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Gay Brewer
"When a boy handed me a cup of water on the 16th tee, I could hardly hold it. I didn't know whether I was holdin' the putter or it was holdin' me."
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Darren Clarke
"You definitely use a lot more imagination on the greens here than the majority of courses we play because of the lack of rough around the greens. You can lob it up, bump it up. Do whatever you want, just get it up there somewhere."
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Alistair Cooke
"The Masters is more like a vast Edwardian garden party than a golf tournament."
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Ben Crenshaw
"The 12th hole eventually makes you look like a fool. Because of the wind, there are times when you hit it and hope."
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John Daly
"I've heard the winner of the Masters hosts the dinner. If I ever won it, there would be no suits, no ties and McDonald's."
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David Duval
"Finishing second at the Masters was like getting kicked in the head."
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Nick Faldo
"It's a very electric atmosphere out there. This is the Masters. It's got the beauty, it's got the color, it's got the sound and the breezes. Everything together makes this place special."
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Jim Furyk
"I can't think of another course in the world that the more you play, the more you learn."
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Dan Jenkins
Jenkins said of Masters in the past: "All the players lockered upstairs in the main clubhouse," Jenkins says. "There were no orchestrated interviews. You caught guys on the verandah or upstairs in the clubhouse and climbed in top of sofas and chairs to listen."
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Dave Marr
"At my first Masters, I got the feeling that if I didn't play well, I wouldn't go to heaven."
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Phil Mickelson
"The winner of this tournament doesn't just win a major. He becomes a part of the history of the game, and that's what excites me. This tournament creates something that is very special, and year in year out, history is made here."
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Jack Nicklaus
"If you hit it long and straight and throw it up in the air high and putt well, you'll do well here. That's always been the formula at this golf course, and I don't think that it's changed."
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Mark O'Meara
"All of us have dreamed of making that putt on the 18th green to win the Masters. I've had some tough times along the road, but to know that a Masters trophy is home in my cabinet, that I'll always be invited back here, that my name is going along with some of the greatest players of all time is something that will never change."
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Tommy Tolles
"This is probably the only golf course I have spent a week on and never felt comfortable over a shot. I was off-guard all week."
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John Updike
"Green grass, green grandstands, green concession stalls, green paper cups, green folding chairs and visors for sale, green and white ropes, green-topped Georgia pines. If justice were poetic, Hubert Green would win it every year."-- from, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Masters (1980)
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Tiger Woods
"One of the keys to this golf course is to put yourself in those situations where you can be aggressive with your putts."
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