Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

Maybe you'll fail most of the time, but until you've dared to try and have brought off an impossible shot from the rough or from the water, you haven't really tasted the game

Palmer’s line — but not in these words Arnold Palmer 1929–2016 · American professional golfer
Disputed In copyright

Arnold Palmer did write this — but not with this ending. Wikiquote’s sourced section ↗ places the sentence in My Game and Yours (1965) at page 83, and the sentence it documents runs on past “from the water”: “… or have salvaged a hole by laying a monster of a 2-iron shot stiff against the pin, you will have missed golf’s greatest playing thrill.” The closing clause in circulation — “you haven’t really tasted the game” — turns up in no source we could reach, including the page that carries the citation.

Last verified 18 Oct 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed wording — copy with the correction

“Maybe you'll fail most of the time, but until you've dared to try and have brought off an impossible shot from the rough or from the water, you haven't really tasted the game” Arnold Palmer, My Game and Yours (1965), p. 83, as cited by Wikiquote. The ending “you haven't really tasted the game” is a later paraphrase. Traced by Quotle.info · Verbatim: “Maybe you'll fail most of the time, but until you've dared to try and have brought off an impossible shot from the rough or from the water, or have salvaged a hole by laying a monster of a 2-iron shot stiff against the pin, you will have missed golf's greatest playing thrill.”

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Arnold Palmer and its publisher). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Arnold Palmer — American professional golfer. Theme: "Maybe you'll fail most of the time, but until you've dared to try and have brought off an impossible shot from the rough or from the water, you haven't really tasted the game". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Maybe you'll fail most of the time, but until you've dared to try and have brought off an impossible shot from the rough or from the water, you haven't really tasted the game". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source, and where the wording parts company

Source
My Game and Yours
First published
1965 · Simon and Schuster, New York
Page
83 — per Wikiquote’s citation; the book is in copyright and we did not read the page ourselves
Verdict
Right author, drifted ending

Maybe you’ll fail most of the time, but until you’ve dared to try and have brought off an impossible shot from the rough or from the water, or have salvaged a hole by laying a monster of a 2-iron shot stiff against the pin, you will have missed golf’s greatest playing thrill. Arnold Palmer, My Game and Yours, 1965, p. 83

This is the sentence as Wikiquote ↗ documents it, with the clause the circulating version drops shown in bold. My Game and Yours is in copyright and the Internet Archive’s scan is lending-restricted, so nobody here has turned page 83 — the wording rests on Wikiquote’s sourced citation, not on a page we read.

Scanned book (lending copy)
My Game and Yours (Simon and Schuster, 1965) at the Internet Archive
Wikiquote: Arnold Palmer, where the sentence is cited to My Game and Yours, p. 83

How we verified this

  • The wording comes from Wikiquote’s Arnold Palmer page ↗, where the sentence sits in the sourced section with a book citation attached: My Game and Yours, 1965, page 83.
  • The book exists as cited. The Internet Archive’s catalogue record for My game and yours ↗ gives Palmer, Arnold, 1929–; New York, Simon and Schuster; 1965; 158 p.
  • We searched for the circulating ending — “you haven’t really tasted the game” — and found nothing carrying it: not the Wikiquote entry that supplies the citation, and not any collection we could reach. On that evidence it is a later paraphrase, and we say so rather than printing it as Palmer’s sentence.
  • What we could not do, stated plainly: the 1965 text is in copyright and the Archive’s scan is lending-restricted, so page 83 was not read here. The documented wording rests on Wikiquote’s sourced citation alone.
In copyright

My Game and Yours was first published in 1965 by Simon and Schuster, New York — well after the 1931 cutoff for the United States public domain — so the book and this sentence remain in copyright. The single sentence is quoted here for identification, verification and criticism, not the passage or the chapter around it.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Often mis-worded

Nobody else is claiming this line. What happened to it is simpler: the ending fell off and a smoother one grew back.

“you haven’t really tasted the game” Later paraphrase

The documented sentence does not stop at the water hazard. It adds a third clause — the 2-iron laid stiff against the pin — and closes “you will have missed golf’s greatest playing thrill.” See Wikiquote’s sourced entry ↗, which carries the book and page. The tidier ending in circulation is not in it.

Arnold Palmer Genuine author

The sentiment and the sentence are his. Wikiquote ↗ files the line under a real book with a page number, and the Internet Archive’s catalogue record for that book ↗ matches the citation. This page corrects a wording, not an attribution.

Best evidence: Arnold Palmer, My Game and Yours (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965), page 83, as cited by Wikiquote ↗ — ending on the 2-iron, not on “tasted the game”.

Context

Why it mattered

Palmer turned professional in 1955 and became, as Wikipedia ↗ puts it, the first superstar of golf’s television age — nicknamed “the King” and widely regarded as one of the most charismatic players the sport has had.

That is the context the sentence belongs to. It is not a motivational slogan about trying hard; it is a working player’s defence of the reckless recovery shot, the one that fails most of the time, written by the man whose attacking style was the reason crowds followed him.

Maybe you’ll fail most of the time — and that is the argument, not the caveat.

Read the full story

My Game and Yours was published by Simon and Schuster in 1965, a 158-page instruction book, a decade into Palmer’s professional career. The Internet Archive holds a lending scan ↗; Wikiquote’s citation points into a Google Books copy ↗ of the same volume.

Why we did not simply call this “verified”: the page’s whole job is the exact wording, and the exact wording asked about is not the documented one. Calling it verified would endorse an ending no source carries.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Courage Failure Success

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquote: Arnold Palmeren.wikiquote.org

The sourced entry that cites this sentence to My Game and Yours (1965), p. 83.
My Game and Yours (1965)archive.org

Catalogue record and lending scan of the book the line is cited to.
Wikipedia: Arnold Palmeren.wikipedia.org

Biography — the professional career, the nickname, the television era.
My Game and Yours on Google Booksbooks.google.com

The volume Wikiquote’s citation links into for the page-83 search.

The author

About Arnold Palmer

Arnold Palmer

1929–2016 · American professional golfer

Arnold Daniel Palmer (1929–2016) was an American professional golfer, widely regarded as one of the greatest and most charismatic players in the sport’s history. He turned professional in 1955 and won repeatedly on the PGA Tour and on the circuit now known as PGA Tour Champions. Nicknamed “the King”, he was golf’s first superstar of the television age, and the attacking, go-for-it style that made him famous is exactly what this sentence is defending.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Palmer, Arnold. My Game and Yours. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965, p. 83. Cited to this page by Wikiquote; the page itself was not read here.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Maybe you'll fail most of the time, but until you've dared to try and have brought off an impossible shot from the rough or from the water, you haven't really tasted the game’?” Last verified 18 Oct 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/maybe-youll-fail-most-of-the-time-but-until-youve-dared-to/

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