All of golf’s elder statesmen have their signature personalities. Jack Nicklaus is the soft-spoken, even-tempered conscience of the game. Tom Watson’s sincere and sober demeanor embraces the dignity of a sport soaked in tradition and etiquette. Gary Player is an ageless ball of energy, eager to share his wit and wisdom with anyone in earshot.
Among all of those, Lee Trevino is golf’s star comedian—the clown prince with a pitching wedge in hand. Forever amiable and eager to teach anyone from a PGA pro to a beginning hacker, Trevino’s unrelenting positivity grew from humble beginnings and flourished through a successful playing career that included six Major Tournament championships.
The 84-year-old native of Garland, Texas, recently held court while playing in the exclusive Q Tournament at Hawaii’s Kohanaiki resort real estate community—a private event featuring PGA Champions Tour players competing alongside the venue’s elite, wealthy residents. The setting offered a stark contrast to the farms Trevino labored in as a 5-year-old.
With palm trees swaying along the Big Island’s Kona coastline, Trevino opened up about where golf took a kid raised by his gravedigger grandfather and who had to sneak into Texas country clubs to practice with his one old club and a handful of beat up golf balls.
Penta: Beyond winning 29 PGA Tour events, you’re known as an ambassador of the game who goes out of his way to coach up anyone in need of guidance. What drives you to help the struggling golfer when you could just walk away?
Lee Trevino: If I was sitting on a park bench in the middle of a block, and I saw a child out in the street with a bus bearing down on that child, I would have to save that child. When I’m on a driving range, and I’m standing behind some of these people, I’m watching them trying to kill flies—not hit golf balls. I’m watching them digging holes so deep on that range that I saw birds gathering to eat the worms left behind.
I can’t stand it. It kills me. All I can think is “I gotta help this person.”
What’s the first thing you say to the people digging those holes?
I tell them the game of golf is like having a fly on a table. I tell you to kill a fly, you’d just slam your hand down on it. If I told you to swat that fly clean into the wall across the room, you’d swing through it. The problem with golf is that the ball isn’t moving, and you have a stick in your hand. Your instinct is to swing hard at it like you’re killing a rat.
Now, I can take anyone–man, woman, child—that’s never played the game before and, in two minutes, I can show them the feel of the golf swing. All you have to do is stand straight up with the club straight out at 90 degrees, and swing from shoulder to shoulder, easily, fast, and faster. I let them swing it high. Anyone can do it. Keep swinging and lower it, lower it, and lower it until it hits the ground and finishes. That’s the feel of a golf swing.
You manage to bring humor and positivity into your coaching. Beyond just passing on your golfing expertise, what else does that instruction do for you?
I love to teach. When I teach, I want you to own it. I want you to feel it. I want you to understand what I give you—because once I teach you the techniques of it all—you get to take that with you for the rest of your life. You can grow with it. You can add to it and make what you add your own.
In addition to teaching and growing the game, you’re connected with a variety of philanthropic causes. One of the most prominent is your fundraising for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. How did that relationship come together?
[St. Jude founder]
Danny Thomas
and I became friends at the 1970 Bob Hope Classic [in La Quinta, Calif.]. I promised Danny a US$5,000 donation if I ever won his tournament [now the FedEx St. Jude Championship]. I was able to fulfill that promise in 1971, and have continued my charitable love affair over the years. We figure St. Jude’s connection to golf raised more than US$30 million over the years.
You’re 84 years old. Do you feel your age?
No, but the only reason I’m still alive is my wife of 40 years, Claudia. I must’ve met her when she was 11. She’s taken care of me all these years, and she treats me today like she did the day she met me. It’s hard to realize and express what having the right person in my life does for me.
How is Claudia still taking care of you to this day?
She’s the reason I’m still in the shape I’m in and the reason I can still hit the ball like I do. I have a gymnasium back in our home, and she not only made sure it was there, but she makes sure I’m in there six times a day. I might not do a lot while I’m in there, but I do something.
It can’t be all about keeping you in the gym. How does your wife show that same affection she’s had for you the past four decades?
This Christmas, she bought me something I’ve always wanted. She gave me this present in a wrapped box, and I thought it was a shirt. I opened it in front of her, my son, my daughter, and the rest of our family. Instead of a shirt, there was a brochure inside the box. I started to choke up because I’ve wanted one of these things for 30 years and never had one.
She bought me a La-Z-Boy. She would never let me have one because she always said, “I’m not going to let you just retire and sit around and drool on yourself! You’re not getting a La-Z-Boy.” When she finally gave it to me, I told her how great it was and asked her where she was going to put it.
It’s in the gym.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Read the full article here
