Page 84 - Golf World (February 2020)

strokes. “Anybody can win a sudden-death play-off,” he
recalled later, “but to win over 18 holes, when I beat the
best there is, it gave me the confidence and I felt like
now I belonged. I knew I could play with the best.”
Nicklaus would only be human to have wondered
what fresh hell he’d unwittingly unleashed. Another
fortnight on, Trevino had also landed the Canadian
Open and his first Open Championship at Royal
Birkdale, seeing off another good friend in Lu Liang-
Huan. Taking a one-shot lead into the final round at
Birkdale, playing with Mr Lu (as he was known by fans
and fellow players), Trevino got off to a fast start with
five birdies on five of the first six holes. “After about six
holes, Mr Lu looked at me, bowed and said, ‘Hey Bird,’
which is what he called me, ‘do you want to play
through?” Victory over Mr Lu at Birkdale was a
watershed moment for SuperMex. “I never thought I
belonged. I never had the equipment. It’s like a farm boy
going to Oxford and he doesn’t have the clothes. You
gotta have the tails! You can’t do it. When I left Birkdale
it was the first time I felt deep down that I belonged. I’d
arrived. I’m one of the guys!” Twelve months
later, Trevino successfully defended his Claret Jug at
Muirfield with a display that captured his never-say-die

‘i never belonged.

it’s like a farm boy
going to oxford

without the right
clothes. you gotta

have the tails!’

attitude forever in aspic. During most of the third
round, he clung onto the coattails of leader Tony
Jacklin, yet another good friend about to fall victim
to Trevino’s relentless ways. Suddenly he shifted up a
gear: an absurd closing run of five consecutive birdies,
including two chip-ins and three 20-foot putts, gave
him a one-stroke 54-hole advantage. Trevino took to
telling the locals in the gallery that “if there was such a
thing as reincarnation, maybe I was a Scotsman before
I was a Mexican!”
Jacklin looked stunned at the smash and grab, though
this was nothing compared to what happened at the
71st hole on Saturday. The Englishman was comfortably
on the long par 5 in three strokes; Trevino, having
faffed around in a fairway bunker, was through the
back in four. Convinced he had fatally lost all
momentum at exactly the wrong moment, SuperMex
dropped a wedge back onto the green without giving
the shot any real thought. The ball bumped down the
grassy bank and rolled across the rock-hard green on an
inexorable journey into the cup for par. Jacklin,
thoroughly rattled at Trevino’s jailbreak, three-putted
from 15 feet, turning birdie into bogey. What looked
like an advantage for Jacklin going up 18 had turned
into a two-shot deficit. In a lightning flash. The BBC
commentator Henry Longhurst sighed: “Ah well, his
turn will come again.” But it never did. Jacklin,
convinced the golfing gods were against him, was spent

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