the club with my hands. That was the closest I ever got to the ball. I don’t know why I didn’t stay there,” he says. “That week I got in a great rhythm, see- ing the line quickly and taking no prac- tice strokes. Man, the holes looked big.” It expanded after he holed a 45-footer for birdie to close out his opening 70, and then with a seagoing 65-footer for birdie on the 16th on Saturday. “That one turned around everything,” he says. When he and Nicklaus tied after 72 holes, Trevino was eager to go up against the man he now calls the GOAT in an 18-hole playoff. “I never, ever thought I was as good as Jack, but I never feared anybody when I played them heads up,” he says. “Jack brought out the best in me. Play- ing against him was my chance to truly measure myself, which is something I needed at the time, so it was like I’d al- ready won.” In the Monday playoff, Trevino bo- geyed the easy first but played the last 17 holes three-under without a bogey to defeat Nicklaus 68 to 71. “I kept hitting that driver straight, and I made two 25- foot birdie putts on the back nine that were big. Jack is the strongest player mentally probably ever, but on a US Open setup it’s tough to beat someone who’s always in the fairway.” The next day at the Cleveland Open Invitational, where he would finish T-34, veteran players who had been distant came up to Trevino to sincerely congratulate him. “I had proved myself to them,” says Trevino, “and I finally felt like I belonged.” Trevino went to Montreal and won the Canadian Open, defeating Art Wall in sudden death on the first extra hole with yet another 20-footer for birdie. Trevino was gleeful at Royal Birk- dale, where he arrived only a day before the first round, an extrovert in his glory I REALISED THAT EVERYTHING HAD COME TOGETHER. I HAD BECOME THE MOST COMPLETE GOLFER I WOULD EVER BE.
US to play the Western Open, where he finished T-32. The next week at West- chester, his 15th tournament in a row since skipping the Masters, he missed the cut, and pronounced “I’m beat.” “I played too much in those days. I thought I needed to because I didn’t know how long that level of play was going to last,” Trevino says. Though he would repeat the next year at The Open and win the PGA in 1974, Trevino concedes “I was never quite the same again, the way I was in ’71.” After he was struck by lightning in 1975 – which compromised his back – he managed to win the Vardon Trophy one more time in 1980 and a last-hurrah major – his sixth – at the 1984 PGA. “I will tell you one thing,” Trevino says. “I came along at the right time. I played with all the greats. I played with Sarazen, Snead, Hogan, Jack, all the way to Tiger – and I did all right – espe- cially in ’71. “Hell, go ahead
on the brooding and beautiful link- sland, talking and sometimes singing, captivating the crowd. “I wasn’t tired; I was psyched up,” he remembers. “I felt like Jack on that course. Birkdale had five par 5s, and I could reach all of them in two with the small British ball, and I realised that everything had come together. I had become the most com- plete golfer I would ever be.” Trevino had a five-stroke lead with nine to play over Lu Liang-Huan but al- most blew it when, with too much con- fidence, “I tried to knock the hell out of my tee shot” on the 71st hole and made double bogey. However, he closed with a fearless birdie to win by one, unleash- ing his most forceful celebration of the magical 20 days. “I had a little bit of Tiger in me when I showed everyone that emotion,” Tre- vino says with a smile. “I was saying, ‘OK, who’s next?’ To have played well enough to feel that way in the GOAT’s prime, maybe I’m most proud of that.” There were no more majors to win that year, as the PGA Championship had been played in February. Remark- ably, Trevino kept up his breakneck schedule, immediately returning to the
LOOKING BACK At 85, Trevino still plays and has no regrets about his career.
and take me out. The game doesn’t get any better than what it did for me.”
126 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
MAY 2025
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