Lee Trevino, his old golf clubs — and one helluva compassionate gesture

Playing in a major championship. Winning it. Doing so while having worked in the broadcast booth earlier in the year. A putter from the Netherlands. And a compassionate gesture.  

This is a story about used golf clubs, as only Lee Trevino can tell it. 

To set it up, know that Trevino appeared last week on the Scoops with Danny Mac show, and you can listen to the entire interview here. And about halfway through it, Trevino was asked by co-host Jay Delsing, himself a longtime pro, about coming “out of the booth” to win the 1984 PGA Championship, held at Shoal Creek. And he had; at that point in his career, Trevino was also doing TV work. 

We’ll let him continue, and add info only as needed. But you must stay till the end. 

“Oh yeah. I came out of the booth,” Trevino said on the show. “I hadn’t played in three years. I dabbled a little bit, but I didn’t play. I’d won the PGA in ’74 at Tanglewood so I was exempt to play in that one. So I came out of the booth. And ran into a golf course that was extremely hard. The rough was absolutely unbelievable. No one could get out of that rough there at Shoal Creek. I like the layout and it was kind of flat, as you remember.” 

At this point on the show, Trevino talked about the putter he played that week. It deserves a special mention. It was a Ping A-blade that his wife bought just ahead of him winning the 1984 Dutch Open, and he added this, on an appearance last year on the New Breed of Golf show on the SiriusXM: “But I won the PGA with a Ping, you remember, the ‘A’ blade. My wife bought that in Holland, believe it or not, because I hit 18 greens that day in the Dutch Open and I shot 72, and she went in and paid 55 dollars for a putter and I shot 64 the next day with it.” 

OK, back to the original story. And more Trevino. 

“Not much undulation in there, plus my wife had bought me a putter in Holland, and it was a Ping A-blade, which I had never putted with a Ping, and I kept shooting 64s with it. … I said I didn’t know it was this easy to make a putt.”

Here, we get to used golf clubs. And a selfless donation. 

“You got any more of those, Lee?” Delsing asked on the show. “I could use one of those right now.” 

“You know, Karsten [Solheim, founder of Ping] made me two of them,” Trevino said on the show. “He put a line on one of them and he didn’t on the other one. He made me one and I bought the other one; it didn’t have a line on it. And I still have both of them. I still have them both. 

“Man, usually I don’t keep golf clubs; I give them away. You know what I do with all my old clubs, believe it or not? I don’t sell them; I don’t do anything. I take them to my pro at Preston Trail, and I’ll have them all bundled up, and I say, can you take these and give them to the First Tee, but don’t tell them where they came from? He said, we’ll take care of it.” 

“I love that,” co-host Dan McLaughlin said.  

“That is terrific,” Delsing said. 

Indeed.  

“And that’s what I do with the clubs, yeah,” Trevino said on the show. 

“I don’t want them to know they’re mine, no.”

Editor’s note: To listen to the entire interview with Trevino on the Scoops with Danny Mac show, please click here. 

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Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.