Lee Trevino says a fond farewell to ‘the old grey toon’

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Lee Trevino stood on the 18^th tee at The Old Course on Monday during the four-hole Celebration of Champions exhibition and as he did his patented dance into his stance, he mused, “This might be my last drive I hit here.”

Trevino, 82, twice the Champion Golfer of the Year for claiming the British Open in 1971 and ’72, played in six Opens here, nearly winning his first Open title at The Old Course in 1970. He owned a two-stroke lead heading into the final round. But he aimed at the wrong flag at the shared green that houses both the fifth and 13^th hole and three-putted five times on the day, limping home in 77 to finish tied for third, two strokes out of an 18-hole playoff between Doug Sanders and eventual winner Jack Nicklaus.

That week, Trevino fell in love with the town more so than the golf course. He visited its cathedrals and paid homage at the gravesites of Old Tom and Young Tom Morris, the legendary father-son duo who won the Open Championship four times each. “I actually get chill bumps when I walk over the Swilcan Burn Bridge,” Trevino said. “Can you imagine the spikes that have echoed off that bridge?”

Trevino won six majors among his 29 PGA Tour titles, and his wins at Royal Birkdale and Muirfield always held a special place in his memory.

“I know it is in the book,” he said on Monday. “My trophies are at home. We know where they are at. We look at them.”

As he once noted, “To me, the Open is the tournament I would come to if I had to leave a month before and swim over.”

If that was the last drive Trevino hits here, he went out with a hook. Known for his fade, Trevino drew laughs as he followed the flight of his ball and proclaimed, “If Sanders had hit his drive there like I told him to, he would’ve won the damn Open.”

“Non-stop,” Rory McIlroy said of Trevino’s endless chatter.

“I’ve watched him hit some balls before on the range, but I never knew, like, he literally walks into the shot, sets up for a cut, and then walks all the way around to setting up for a draw, and then he makes his swing, but he’s talking at the same time,” McIlroy said of Trevino during his Tuesday press conference. “He’s one of a kind. It was great to be out there with him because you just listen, the stories that he tells, and most of the time, he’s just talking to himself, but he just wants to talk.”

Breaking out one of his tried and true lines to great laughter, Trevino later said, “I can’t wait to get up in the morning just to hear what I have to say.”

Trevino and McIlroy were joined by Georgia Hall and Tiger Woods in the final pairing of the exhibition. Woods explained in simple but eloquent terms what made the occasion so special.

“That’s history right there,” he said of posing for photos at the Swilcan Burn Bridge with Nicklaus and Trevino. “I watched them play this Open Championship, waking up, the telecast would come on at 5:00 a.m. on the West Coast to get a chance to watch them play and to see them hit the shots, and listen to Lee Buck talking about the small ball playing over here and what he used to do with it…That’s what makes it so special.”

Turning nostalgic, Trevino made sure to have his picture taken on the famed bridge with Nicklaus as well as with his family.

One day later, Trevino received an honorary doctorate from the University of St. Andrews as part of a larger ceremony for outstanding service to the game. He noted that he has studied not only the history of the tournament but of King James and his ban of golf, and can quote details from the first Open at Prestwick in 1860. One of the faculty members, dressed as if a character in a Harry Potter movie, joked that they might want to hire him as a professor in the school of golf studies.

“This golf course is easy if you do everything perfectly,” Trevino said. “But if you’re a little off with an iron or a driver, this is a booger bear because of the gorse and the heather and the deep bunkers. It’s extremely hard.”

“Believe me, she will hold her own,” he declared to attendees at the ceremony.

Trevino even grew serious for a moment.

“Golf has been my whole life,” he said, while adding, “this is the greatest honor I’ve ever had.”