PUNTA MITA, Mexico — Lee Trevino is hard at work doing the two things he does best: hitting a golf ball and talking a mile a minute. Some 50+ members at Punta Mita Golf Club, home to two Jack Nicklaus designs, and VIPs of the WCW Mexico Senior Open have gathered around the practice green for Pacific and Bahia golf courses as Trevino treats them to a clinic on the short game and bunker play.
Trevino, who celebrated his 85th birthday on December 1, hasn’t been slowing down. Just last month, he did Q&A’s and clinics in Chicago, Little Rock, Arkansas, El Paso, Texas, Palm Springs, Calif., and this one in Mexico, the country where his grandfather, who helped raise him, emigrated from a few years before he was born.
“It’s a funny thing because, hell, I make more now than I did when I played,” he says with a laugh. “This here, this is my home country. They’re buying my breakfast. That’s it. I told them, ‘Just buy me lunch and breakfast.’ ”
And so Trevino, one of the game’s greatest wedge wizards, still is performing, leaving them laughing with his trademark wit and wisdom and his audience soaked it all up until Trevino closed out the session by saying, “I’m done. We’re finished. I’m going to go lay down.” Of course, he headed to the back of the range and beat more balls.
Happy birthday, Lee. Don’t ever change and thanks for sharing your wit and wisdom with all of us.
Lee Trevino hoists the trophy after winning the 1984 PGA Championship at the Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama. (Photo: David Cannon/Allsport)
Trevino wore a Merry Mex striped shirt with the colors of the Mexican flag, navy shorts with a Folds of Honor belt and a black knee brace on his right knee. He told the attendees of the clinic that he was going to focus on the short game. “You know I can hit the ball,” he said. “My record tells you, you don’t need to see that anyway.”
And then Trevino summed up why he wanted to emphasize the short game.
“You can go 400 yards in two rolling the ball and then it takes you three to get down to 20 feet. It kills you,” he said, “and it’s because you don’t know how to hit a chip shot.”
“Unless this shot is going to be a bump here,” he instructed, “that’s the only time the club is square to the target.
“If you have any type of shot around the green and you want to support getting the ball up, then you have to play with an open club, mandatory. What happens…
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