An old line often attributed to Jack Nicklaus is "I never missed a putt; somehow it just didn't go in."

While Nicklaus may never have expressed that thought in so many words, in his book "Putting Out of Your Mind," sports psychologist Bob Rotella remembers a speaking engagement where Nicklaus claimed to have "never three-putted the last hole of a tournament or missed from five feet on the last hole of a tournament."

After he finished his talk, Nicklaus took questions from the audience. A gentleman in his 60s said he had watched on television as Nicklaus had missed a three-foot putt on the final hole of the previous year's Senior PGA Championship. He remembered that Lee Trevino, in the broadcast booth, had lamented that while Nicklaus used to never miss short putts, as he'd gotten older, he tended sometimes to push them to the right. The earnest audience member said he could send Nicklaus the videotape if he'd like to see it.

Nicklaus was adamant. He didn't need to see the tape. He was there. He never missed a putt within five feet on the last hole of a tournament.

But he did, Rotella pointed out. Nicklaus missed plenty of putts inside five feet on the last hole of a tournament. To his mind, Nicklaus wasn't exactly lying about his putting prowess. He was simply able to forget his short misses. And that sort of instant amnesia is one of the things that made Nicklaus a champion.

(I still have a recurring nightmare about a pop fly I dropped in a Little League game.)

I like the possibly apocryphal quote better than........

© El Dorado News Times