Lee Trevino
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Personal Information | |
|---|---|
| Birth | December 1, 1939 Dallas, Texas, U.S. |
| Height | 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) |
| Weight | 180 lb (82 kg) |
| Nationality |  United States |
| Residence | Rancho Santa Fe, California, U.S. |
| College | None |
| Career | |
| Turned Pro | 1960 |
| Current tour | Champions Tour |
| Professional wins | 87 (PGA Tour: 29, Champions Tour: 29, Other: 29) |
| Best Results in Major Championships Wins: 6 |
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| Masters | T10: 1975, 1985 |
| U.S. Open | Won 1968, 1971 |
| British Open | Won 1971, 1972 |
| PGA Championship | Won 1974, 1984 |
| Awards | |
| Vardon Trophy | 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1980 |
| Byron Nelson Award | 1980 |
| World Golf Hall of Fame | 1981 |
| Jack Nicklaus Trophy (Champions Tour) | 1990, 1992, 1994 |
| Arnold Palmer Award (Champions Tour) | 1990, 1992 |
| Champions Tour Rookie of the Year | 1990 |
| Byron Nelson Award (Champions Tour) | 1990, 1991, 1992 |
Lee Buck Trevino (born December 1, 1939) is an American professional golfer. He is an icon for Mexican Americans, and is often referred to as "The Merry Mex" and "Supermex".[1]
Contents |
[edit] Early life
Lee Buck Trevino was born in Dallas, Texas in poverty to parents of Mexican descent. His mother, Juanita Trevino, and grandfather, a gravedigger, raised Trevino. He never knew his father. Trevino's childhood amounted to him spending time attending school occasionally and working to help earn money for the family. At the age of five, Lee started working in the cotton fields.
Trevino was introduced to the game of golf when his uncle gave him a few old golf balls and a rusty golf club. From this point on, Lee could not get enough. He spent most of his free time sneaking into nearby country clubs to practice his newly found activity. At eight years old he began caddying at Dallas Athletic Club, a local golf course. However, a few years later, caddying became a full time job because he needed to earn enough money to survive. Thus, before his eighth grade year, Trevino had to leave school in order to go to work. As a caddy and a shoeshiner, Trevino worked for 30 U.S. dollars a week. On top of this, he was also able to make priceless gains in his golfing ability. This was because the caddies had three short practice holes behind their shack, and it was there, with old, discarded clubs, that Trevino learned to improve his golf game. For years, every day after work, he would work on improving his skills by hitting a least 300 balls a session. At seventeen, Trevino joined the United States Marine Corps and served four years. Over the last eighteen months in the service, a great deal of his time was spent playing golf with Marine Corps officers. Trevino himself claims that his time spent being a desirable golf partner helped earn him a Sergeant's promotion.
[edit] Professional career
After his discharge, Trevino continued his pursuit of the game, taking a club professional job in El Paso, Texas, and gambling for stakes in head-to-head matches. In 1967, he began playing on the PGA Tour. That year he played in his second U.S. Open golf championship, shot 283, eight shots behind champion Jack Nicklaus, and earned $6,000 for finishing fifth. He won $26,472 as a rookie, 45th on the PGA Tour money list, and was the Rookie of the Year, as named by Golf Digest magazine.
In 1968 at the Oak Hill Country Club (Rochester, New York), a large goal was reached when he won the U.S. Open. From then on, there was no looking back. Over the course of his career, Trevino won 29 times on the PGA Tour, including six majors. He was at his best in the early 1970s, when for a time he was Jack Nicklaus's biggest rival, winning the money list title in 1970, and picking up ten wins in two seasons in 1971 and 1972. Among the highlights during those 2 memorable seasons, were winning the 1971 U.S. Open in an 18-hole playoff over Jack Nicklaus, then 2 weeks later, he won the Canadian Open and the following week The Open Championship, making him the first player to win those three national titles in the same year (Tiger Woods matched the feat in 2000), and he was rewarded the Hickok Belt as top professional athlete of 1971, as well as winning Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" award, he was also being named as ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year that year.
After winning the 1974 PGA Championship, he was struck by lightning at the 1975 Western Open, and suffered injuries to his spine and back. He later underwent surgery to remove a damaged spinal disk, and back problems later restricted his play. However, while he never repeated his multiple-major winning feats of the early 1970s, he returned to his position of one of the game's leading players - he was ranked second in McCormack's World Golf Rankings in 1980, behind Tom Watson, the same position he had attained in 1971, and won his sixth and last major, the 1984 PGA Championship at the unusually advanced age of 44. In the early 1980s he was second on the PGA Tour career money list, behind only Jack Nicklaus. [1]
Trevino also won more than 20 international and unofficial professional tournaments. In his fifties he was one of the key charismatic stars who helped to make the Senior PGA Tour, now the Champions Tour, a commercial success. He picked up the same tally of 29 wins on this tour as he had on the regular tour, including four senior majors. He topped the senior money list in 1990 and 1992.
Trevino played for the United States in the Ryder Cup six times (1969, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1979, 1981), and had an impressive 17-7-6 win-loss-half record. He also served as team captain in 1985.
Trevino won the Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average five times: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, and 1980.
Trevino has established numerous scholarships and continues to offer assistance to many Mexican Americans who are less fortunate.
Throughout his career, Trevino was seen as one of the more approachable and humorous of PGA golfers, and was frequently quoted by the press. Late in his career, he remarked, "I played the tour in 1967 and told jokes and nobody laughed. Then I won the Open the next year, told the same jokes, and everybody laughed like hell."[2] At the beginning of their 1971 playoff for the U.S. Open, he playfully threw a rubber snake at Jack Nicklaus. [2] During his early career, much attention was focused by the press on a BandAid that Trevino wore on his forearm covering a tattoo of the name of his ex-wife. This became a frequent topic of self-deprecating humor for the good-natured Trevino. (He has since had this tattoo removed by a plastic surgeon using a laser technique.) His self–taught style, distinguished by an out-to-in swing designed to fade the ball (which he devised to combat a chronic hook), led to many exciting shots and skins game victories.
He co-authored his autobiography, titled They Call Me Super Mex.
Trevino was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1981.
In 2000, Trevino was ranked as the 14th greatest golfer of all time by Golf Digest magazine.[3]
Mark Schoenwald has been Trevino's caddy since 2005.
[edit] PGA Tour wins (29)
- 1968 (2) U.S. Open, Hawaiian Open
- 1969 (1) Tucson Open Invitational
- 1970 (2) Tucson Open Invitational, National Airlines Open Invitational
- 1971 (6) Tallahassee Open Invitational, Danny Thomas Memphis Classic, U.S. Open, Canadian Open, The Open Championship, Sahara Invitational
- 1972 (4) Danny Thomas Memphis Classic, The Open Championship, Greater Hartford Open Invitational, Greater St. Louis Golf Classic
- 1973 (2) Jackie Gleason Inverrary-National Airlines Classic, Doral-Eastern Open
- 1974 (2) Greater New Orleans Open, PGA Championship
- 1975 (1) Florida Citrus Open
- 1976 (1) Colonial National Invitation
- 1977 (1) Canadian Open
- 1978 (1) Colonial National Invitation
- 1979 (1) Canadian Open
- 1980 (3) Tournament Players Championship, Danny Thomas Memphis Classic, San Antonio Texas Open
- 1981 (1) MONY Tournament of Champions
- 1984 (1) PGA Championship
Major championships are shown in bold.
[edit] Other wins (19)
- 1965 Texas State Open
- 1966 Texas State Open
- 1969 World Cup (with Orville Moody)
- 1971 World Cup (with Jack Nicklaus)
- 1973 Chrysler Classic (Australia), Mexican Open
- 1974 World Series of Golf (not yet a PGA Tour event)
- 1975 Mexican Open
- 1977 Morocco Grand Prix
- 1978 Benson & Hedges International Open, Lancome Trophy (both European Tour)
- 1979 Canadian PGA Championship
- 1980 Lancome Trophy
- 1981 Casio World Open (Japan Golf Tour), Sun City Classic (South Africa), PGA Grand Slam of Golf (United States - unofficial event)
- 1983 Canadian PGA Championship
- 1985 Dunhill British Masters
- 1987 Skins Game
[edit] Champions Tour wins (29)
- 1990 (7) Royal Caribbean Classic, Aetna Challenge, Vintage Chrysler Invitational, Doug Sanders Kingwood Celebrity Classic, NYNEX Commemorative, U.S. Senior Open, Transamerica Senior Golf Championship
- 1991 (3) Aetna Challenge, Vantage at The Dominion, Sunwest Bank Charley Pride Senior Golf Classic
- 1992 (5) Vantage at The Dominion, The Tradition, PGA Seniors' Championship, Las Vegas Senior Classic, Bell Atlantic Classic
- 1993 (3) Cadillac NFL Golf Classic, Nationwide Championship, Vantage Championship
- 1994 (6) Royal Caribbean Classic, PGA Seniors' Championship, PaineWebber Invitational, Bell Atlantic Classic, BellSouth Senior Classic at Opryland, Northville Long Island Classic
- 1995 (2) Northville Long Island Classic, The Transamerica
- 1996 (1) Emerald Coast Classic
- 1998 (1) Southwestern Bell Dominion
- 2000 (1) Cadillac NFL Golf Classic
Senior majors are shown in bold.
[edit] Other senior wins (10)
- 1991 Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf (with Mike Hill)
- 1992 Mitsukoshi Classic, Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf (with Mike Hill)
- 1993 American Express Grandslam
- 1994 American Express Grandslam
- 1995 Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf (with Mike Hill)
- 1996 Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf (with Mike Hill), Australian PGA Seniors' Championship
- 2000 Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf - Legendary Division (with Mike Hill)
- 2003 ConAgra Foods Champions Skins Game
[edit] Major Championships
[edit] Wins (6)
| Year | Championship | 54 Holes | Winning Score | Margin | Runners Up |
| 1968 | U.S. Open | 1 shot deficit | -5 (69-68-69-69=275) | 4 strokes | Jack Nicklaus |
| 1971 | U.S. Open (2) | 4 shot deficit | E (70-72-69-69=280) | Playoff 1 | Jack Nicklaus |
| 1971 | The Open Championship | 1 shot lead | -14 (69-70-69-70=278) | 1 stroke |  Lu Liang-Huan |
| 1972 | The Open Championship (2) | 1 shot lead | -6 (71-70-66-71=278) | 1 stroke | Jack Nicklaus |
| 1974 | PGA Championship | 1 shot lead | -4 (73-66-68-69=276) | 1 stroke | Jack Nicklaus |
| 1984 | PGA Championship (2) | 1 shot lead | -15 (69-68-67-69=273) | 4 strokes |  Gary Player, Lanny Wadkins |
1 Defeated Jack Nicklaus in 18-hole playoff - Trevino (68), Nicklaus (71)
[edit] Results timeline
| Tournament | 1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Masters | DNP | DNP | T40 | T19 |
| U.S. Open | T54 | 5 | 1 | CUT |
| The Open Championship | DNP | DNP | DNP | T34 |
| PGA Championship | DNP | DNP | T23 | T48 |
| Tournament | 1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Masters | DNP | DNP | T33 | T43 | DNP | T10 | T28 | DNP | T14 | T12 |
| U.S. Open | T8 | 1 | T4 | T4 | CUT | T29 | DNP | T27 | T12 | T19 |
| The Open Championship | T3 | 1 | 1 | T10 | T31 | T40 | DNP | 4 | T29 | T17 |
| PGA Championship | T26 | T13 | T11 | T18 | 1 | T60 | CUT | T13 | T7 | T35 |
| Tournament | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Masters | T26 | CUT | T38 | T20 | 43 | T10 | 47 | CUT | CUT | T18 |
| U.S. Open | T12 | CUT | CUT | DNP | T9 | CUT | T4 | CUT | T40 | CUT |
| The Open Championship | 2 | T11 | T27 | 5 | T14 | T20 | T59 | T17 | CUT | T42 |
| PGA Championship | 7 | DNP | DNP | T14 | 1 | 2 | T11 | DNP | CUT | CUT |
| Tournament | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Masters | T24 | T49 | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP |
| U.S. Open | DNP | CUT | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP |
| The Open Championship | T25 | T17 | T39 | DNP | CUT | CUT | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP |
| PGA Championship | CUT | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP |
| Tournament | 2000 |
|---|---|
| The Masters | DNP |
| U.S. Open | DNP |
| The Open Championship | CUT |
| PGA Championship | DNP |
DNP = did not play
CUT = missed the half way cut
"T" indicates a tied for a place.
Green background for wins. Yellow background for top-10.
[edit] Trivia
- In the The Simpsons episode Marge Be Not Proud Lee Trevino is spoofed as Lee Caravallo in hosting a game called Lee Caravallo's Putting Challenge. Trevino had a similar game called Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf which was released in 1988 for Nintendo.
- Lee Trevino had an extended cameo in the Adam Sandler film Happy Gilmore.
- Trevino is the first person known to have played pine cone golf.
[edit] See also
- Golfers with most PGA Tour wins
- Golfers with most major championship wins
- Golfers with most Champions Tour wins
- Golfers with most Champions Tour major championship wins
[edit] References
Hoobler, Dorothy and Thomas, The Mexican American Family Album. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
- ^ Profile at Golflegends
- ^ The Gigantic Book of Golf Quotations, ed. Jim Apfelbaum. 2007.
- ^ Yocom, Guy (July 2000). 50 Greatest Golfers of All Time: And What They Taught Us. Golf Digest. Retrieved on 2007-12-05.
[edit] External links
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by George Blanda |
Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year 1971 |
Succeeded by Mark Spitz |
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| 1922 Gene Sarazen (2) · 1924 Walter Hagen (2) · 1926 Bobby Jones (2) · 1930 Bobby Jones (2) · 1932 Gene Sarazen (2) · 1949 Sam Snead (2) · 1951 Ben Hogan (2) · 1953 Ben Hogan (3) · 1960 Arnold Palmer (2) · 1962 Arnold Palmer (2) · 1963 Jack Nicklaus (2) · 1966 Jack Nicklaus (2) · 1971 Lee Trevino (2) · 1972 Jack Nicklaus (2) · 1974 Gary Player (2) · 1975 Jack Nicklaus (2) · 1977 Tom Watson (2) · 1980 Jack Nicklaus (2) · 1982 Tom Watson (2) · 1990 Nick Faldo (2) · 1994 Nick Price (2) · 1998 Mark O'Meara (2) · 2000 Tiger Woods (3) · 2002 Tiger Woods (2) · 2005 Tiger Woods (2) · 2006 Tiger Woods (2) |
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| 1927 Walter Hagen · 1929 Walter Hagen · 1931 Walter Hagen · 1933 Walter Hagen · 1935 Walter Hagen · 1937 Walter Hagen · 1947 Ben Hogan · 1949 Ben Hogan · 1951 Sam Snead · 1953 Lloyd Mangrum · 1955 Chick Harbert · 1957 Jack Burke, Jr. · 1959 Sam Snead · 1961 Jerry Barber · 1963 Arnold Palmer · 1965 Byron Nelson · 1967 Ben Hogan · 1969 Sam Snead · 1971 Jay Hebert · 1973 Jack Burke, Jr. · 1975 Arnold Palmer · 1977 Dow Finsterwald · 1979 Billy Casper · 1981 Dave Marr · 1983 Jack Nicklaus · 1985 Lee Trevino · 1987 Jack Nicklaus · 1989 Raymond Floyd · 1991 Dave Stockton · 1993 Tom Watson · 1995 Lanny Wadkins · 1997 Tom Kite · 1999 Ben Crenshaw · 2002 Curtis Strange · 2004 Hal Sutton · 2006 Tom Lehman · 2008 Paul Azinger |
