Lee Trevino

Lee Trevino is an American professional golfer of Mexican-American heritage whose self-taught swing and constant patter made him one of the most popular figures on the PGA Tour during the 1970s. Born Lee Buck Trevino on December 1, 1939, in Garland, Texas, he was raised by his mother and grandfather in a farmhouse with no electricity and dropped out of school at fourteen to work at a local driving range.

After four years in the Marine Corps he turned professional in 1960 and earned his Tour card in 1966. The next year he finished fifth at the U.S. Open, and in 1968 he won that championship at Oak Hill, becoming the first player to shoot four sub-par rounds in a U.S. Open. He repeated the title in 1971 at Merion in a playoff with Jack Nicklaus.

Across a span from 1968 to 1984 he collected six major championships: two U.S. Opens, two Open Championships at Royal Birkdale and Muirfield, and two PGA Championships, the second won at Shoal Creek at age forty-four. He was named PGA Player of the Year in 1971 and finished his Tour career with twenty-nine victories.

A 1975 lightning strike at the Western Open caused lifelong back trouble but he returned to win majors and later dominated the senior circuit, taking another twenty-nine titles and four more major crowns. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1981.

The name Lee comes from the Old English leah, meaning woodland clearing or meadow, a topographic surname long used as a given name across the American South. He carries it as the boy from a Dallas dirt-road childhood who outdrove the country-club world.