Motivation Quote by Darrell Royal

A “favorite course” is supposed to reveal taste. Darrell Royal dodges the whole premise and, in one dry pivot, reveals a coach’s worldview: preferences are a luxury; conditions are strategy. The line lands because it treats leisure like game-planning. Golf isn’t an escape from competition, it’s another environment to manage.

Royal’s punchline - “where there are the least players” - is funny on its face, a grumpy, practical old-Texas quip. The subtext is sharper: crowds are friction. They slow the pace, introduce noise, force you into other people’s rhythms. A coach who spent his life controlling tempo, spacing, and decision-making is naturally allergic to waiting on strangers to line up a shot. He’s choosing the course the way he’d choose a formation: minimize chaos, maximize flow.

Context matters because Royal coached in an era when the “CEO coach” was still being invented, and his reputation rested on clarity and efficiency (and, not incidentally, on an offense literally named after him). This joke rhymes with that legacy. It’s not romantic about sport; it’s operational. Even his recreation is about reclaiming time, staying unbothered, keeping the day moving.

There’s also a quiet status signal tucked inside the modesty: only someone with real standing can treat “favorite” as irrelevant and focus instead on access and control. Royal makes that power sound like common sense, which is exactly why it works.