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Who really said it

The older you get the stronger the wind gets - and it's always in your face

Attributed to Jack Nicklaus Jack Nicklaus b. 1940 · American golfer, 18-time major champion
Attributed In copyright

Wikiquote’s sourced entry credits the line to Nicklaus in the International Herald Tribune, published in Paris on 28 February 1990 — weeks after his 50th birthday, which fits a joke about age and headwinds. We have not seen that issue, and no independent printing of the sentence turns up, so this is an attribution with a specific citation behind it rather than a verified quotation.

Last verified 7 Oct 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“The older you get the stronger the wind gets - and it's always in your face” Jack Nicklaus, quoted in the International Herald Tribune (Paris), 28 February 1990: “The older you get the stronger the wind gets — and it's always in your face.” Attribution per Wikiquote's sourced entry; the newspaper issue has not been consulted.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Jack Nicklaus; International Herald Tribune). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Jack Nicklaus — American golfer, winner of 18 major championships. Theme: "The older you get the stronger the wind gets - and it's always in your face". 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.

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Provenance

The source

Cited source
International Herald Tribune (Paris) — 28 February 1990
Recorded in
Wikiquote, Jack Nicklaus (sourced section)
Speaker’s age
Nicklaus turned 50 on 21 January 1990, five weeks earlier
Status
Attributed — the newspaper issue has not been consulted

The older you get the stronger the wind gets—and it’s always in your face.

Wikiquote sets this with an em dash and no spaces; the form in wide circulation, and the one this page is titled with, uses a spaced hyphen. The words are the same.

Wikiquote’s sourced entry for Jack Nicklaus

How we verified this

  • The quotation and its citation come from the sourced section of Wikiquote’s Jack Nicklaus page ↗, which gives “International Herald Tribune (Paris, February 28, 1990)”.
  • The date is at least consistent with the remark: Wikipedia ↗ gives Nicklaus’s birth date as 21 January 1940, so the line would have been printed five weeks after he turned 50 — the year he became eligible for senior golf.
  • We could not consult the 28 February 1990 International Herald Tribune, and searches return only Wikiquote and quotation aggregators reproducing it. One citation, unread, is an attribution rather than a verification, and this page says so.
In copyright

First recorded in a newspaper published in 1990, so the text is treated here as in copyright — the words the speaker’s, the published report its publisher’s. Quoting one sentence to discuss its attribution is a separate question from reuse.

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.

Context

Why it mattered

It is a golfer’s joke about getting old, and it works because the wind is the one opponent in golf that cannot be out-practised. A younger player hits through a headwind; an older one notices it. Nicklaus had just turned 50 when this was printed.

He was also, by then, the person with the most authority to make the joke. He had won the Masters at 46 in 1986 — the oldest champion in the tournament’s history at the time — which is the sort of record that earns a man the right to complain about the breeze.

The wind is the one opponent you cannot out-practise.

Read the full story

A note on why this page stops at “attributed”. The citation is good: a named paper, a city, a precise date. But a single uncorroborated citation is exactly the shape that ages badly in quotation collections, because every later copy inherits the same unchecked root. Until the 1990 issue is read, the honest label is attributed.

If you have access to the International Herald Tribune for 28 February 1990 and can confirm the wording and context, that is the one thing that would move this page to verified.

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Filed under

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

Time Resilience Work

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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.

Jack Nicklausen.wikiquote.org

The sourced entry this attribution rests on: both quotations with their publication citations.
Jack Nicklausen.wikipedia.org

Career overview and life dates (born 21 January 1940); 73 PGA Tour wins and 18 majors.
Career achievements by Jack Nicklausen.wikipedia.org

The numbered list of all 73 PGA Tour victories with dates — the reference used to check the win-count claim attached to this quote.
Memorial Tournamenten.wikipedia.org

The tournament Nicklaus founded in 1976, for context on his career after 50.

The author

About Jack Nicklaus

Jack Nicklaus

b. 1940 · American golfer, winner of 18 major championships

Jack Nicklaus, born in Columbus, Ohio on 21 January 1940 and known as the Golden Bear, is generally regarded as one of the greatest golfers who ever played. He won 18 professional major championships and 73 PGA Tour events, the third-highest total in tour history. He founded the Memorial Tournament in 1976 at Muirfield Village, the Ohio course he co-designed, and has since built one of the world’s largest golf-course design practices.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Best available citation (Chicago)

Nicklaus, Jack. Quoted in the International Herald Tribune (Paris), 28 February 1990. Recorded in Wikiquote, “Jack Nicklaus”, sourced section. Issue not consulted.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The older you get the stronger the wind gets - and it's always in your face’?” Last verified 7 Oct 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-older-you-get-the-stronger-the-wind-gets-and-its-always/

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