There is less each day to watch on TV. More than ever, I’ve turned to reading.
Some of it is golf related. Because of that, I’ve been drawn to PGA Tour Radio, especially when some of the game’s legends are interviewed.
A show Monday featured a lengthy visit from the Harmon clan, great teachers Butch, Billy and Claude III. They told rich stories on some of the game’s greats, among them Tiger Woods.
When asked to pick the game’s best shot maker, several settled on Lee Trevino, the Merry Mexican with ties to former Arkansas basketball coach Nolan Richardson.
It was time to phone Richardson. Trevino and their El Paso days are among Richardson's favorite topic.
“We go back to when Lee first moved to El Paso in the early 1960s,” Richardson said. “I was the freshman basketball coach (at Texas-El Paso). There was a big basketball fan who told me I ought to learn how to play golf.”
After some struggles, Richardson eventually took lessons from Trevino and they became great friends. Eventually, both became El Paso's favorite sons. Richardson's golf game has always been solid as he climbed the coaching ranks on a Hall of Fame career.
“I will never forget this: our daughter Yvonne was born on Lee Trevino Day in El Paso, on Aug. 3, 1971," Richardson said. "So there is a lot of history with me with that old boy.”
Trevino won 92 professional tournaments, but 1971 was a special year. He won the U.S. Open, British Open and Canadian Open. Those are the three oldest running tournaments. Woods is the only other player to win those three in the same season (2000).
“Those (Harmon) boys got it right on Lee,” Richardson said. “He was by far the best shot maker the game has known. No one was better. I saw him make shots out of a garbage can.”
Butch Harmon said he watched Trevino fire fades through a hula hoop suspended from a tree. He was asked to try different angles and different clubs. He never missed.
“I believe that,” Richardson said. “I’ve seen him do incredible things and win incredible bets with a taped-up Coke bottle, or beat you with about any one club. You could play your hole bag, but he might beat you with just his putter or any club you picked for him.
“I saw him shoot 84 with a Coke bottle. You name the game, he could beat you at it.”
Richardson said Trevino’s pure talent was huge, but so was the heart.
“Lee was just 5-10, but his heart was about 9-foot tall,” he said. “No one was tougher than Lee. No one.
“But here is the thing, a lot of tough guys are mean. He was the nicest guy in the world. You could not dislike him even if he was beating in your brains because he was so nice.”
But don’t challenge him to a fight.
“There was a cowboy who tried to wrestle him for $50,” Richardson said. “I saw it. The guy was 6-6, 250. That big, old cowboy didn’t last three seconds. Lee pinned him.
“The guy couldn’t believe it. He said, ‘Let’s go again.’ Bam, Lee had him pinned that quick again.”
Richardson said that was partly strength, but as much technique.
“First, Lee was as strong as anyone I knew,” Richardson said. “You have heard that the strongest animal is an ox. Well, Lee was as strong as three.
“Then, he knew how to reduce your strength in wrestling. I think he learned it in the Marines. You grab the hand and cock it and it reduces your ability. So what he was doing to that big, old cowboy was cocking his wrist and it was over. Bam!”
The golf swing is unorthodox, flat with a wide stance.
“I got a kick out of watching him,” Richardson said. “He’d take that stance and hit those fades and they all looked the same. Incredible.
“Like I said, he had incredible strength in his forearms. And, that was back in the day when no one lifted weights. Now, the players on Tour have their own personal trainers with them.”
Trevino won six majors on the PGA Tour, then four more on the Champions Tour. Of those 10 wins, six times Jack Nicklaus was second to Trevino.
“Here’s the thing: Lee got started late or he might have had more majors than any of them,” Richardson said. “He didn’t get the same start in golf the guys he was beating had. He grew up on practice ranges.”
Richardson’s lessons from Trevino reduced a “loopy” swing to more of a compact movement.
“He helped me and then told me to stick with that,” Richardson said. “So I’ve never had a big, long swing any more. I’ve tried to keep things easy and not full. Even then, I was hitting 300-yard drives.”
That was with old equipment. Richardson had natural length.
Former Arkansas basketball coach Nolan Richardson drives on the 17th during the Pro-Am Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009, during the P&G Beauty Northwest Arkansas Championship at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers.(William Moore/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
“I had a few lessons from Lee and was fortunate to play with him a few times,” Richardson said. “And, I saw him in some of his (gambling) games. He’d come up with unique ways to get in your pocket book.”
One of his favorite days came when an El Paso farmer played a Dallas farmer in a big money game. Each could pick his own pro partner.
“They played a 4-ball match,” Richardson said. “The guy from Dallas flew in Raymond Floyd. The guy from El Paso had Lee. That was before anyone really knew Lee.”
It started poorly for Trevino.
“He hit his first tee shot out of bounds and made a double bogey,” Richardson said. “But Lee birdied the next three. Lee and his guy won a ton of money. “
The losers wanted a rematch the next day.
“They played two more 18-hole matches the next day,” Richardson said. “Lee and his guy never lost.
“When I say tough, I mean it. I don’t think Lee feared anybody. But everybody liked him.
“He kept you loose on the golf course, always talking. He’d describe his shots as he was hitting them. He talked as he drew the putter back and he played really fast.
“I’d ask him why he played so fast and he said it was better because if you take too long rigor mortis will set in.”
Richardson hasn’t seen Trevino in a few years, but recalls a fun reunion at a PGA Champions event in Tulsa.
“I was coaching Tulsa and they played at Tulsa Country Club,” Richardson said. “One of the days was rained out, so all of the pro-am guys were hanging out in the club house around me and Lee. It was out of this world.”
The storytelling was amazing.
“There were some guys watching the weather and thinking we might get to go back on the course,” Richardson said. “I was hoping not. Why would you want to break up that? He can really entertain. He has the best stories and when he gets going, you just want to let him go on and on.
“I was glad it was raining. I appreciate so much what he’s done. I’d never heard some of those stories about how he made a living hustling.
“That was great fun for me. He was my hero and more and more as time went along.
“Like I said, the nicest tough guy in the world. I don’t think he would back down from a fight, but he was not ever going to be one to cause a fight.
“You might start out promising yourself you aren’t going to like him, but he’d win you over and in the end you were going to love him.”
That would be the case even when you handed over the money after losing a bet.
“He had ways to beat you on the course,” Richardson said. “He’d set up some of his irons with lead tape to make them stronger and add distance. I saw him do it. He had a seven iron that was altered with tape but you could still see the '7.'
“So what would happen, he’d hit his seven and it would go about like a four iron. You’d hit a seven and you’d be short. It was that lead tape and how he built it up. He’d do stuff like that and hit incredible shots.”