ENERGIZER SENIOR TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

November 6, 1997

Lee Trevino

LEE TREVINO: These guys have already been there. Tell him what I said.

LEE TREVINO: See, that is when you get misquoted. See, he wasn't paying a bit of attention again.

LEE TREVINO: Jesus Christ, look at -- is this O. J. Simpson trial? I am not going to tell the truth so help me God. Listen, I made four birdies and a bogey. I bogeyed 14. Chipped it from in front of the green over the green and 2-putted from off the green about two feet. My birdies, I don't know where the hell I made them, but I know I made four.

LEE TREVINO: No. 3, I made -- I made --

LEE TREVINO: I know. No. 3 I made -- I hit a 5-iron about four feet from the hole; made it for birdie. Then I parred out. Then I birdied 10 from about twelve feet. And then I birdied the 12th from about ten or twelve feet. And I bogeyed 14, I told you. Then I birdied 18. I hit 4-iron, second shot and I made it from about 35 feet.

LEE TREVINO: 4-iron.

LEE TREVINO: Best shape I have ever seen it in. It is in beautiful condition. I sympathize with the members because they have been playing off the cart paths for quite a while. I know they haven't had those carts on those fairways. The fairways are soft, but it is gorgeous and the greens, I don't know, he spiked the green. He put some new grass in them. But, they are putting good. They have great speed. I think most of us guys that played last week, we ran into greens the same speed. Last week at -- what did we play? Wilshire, yeah, those greens were extremely fast, which was actually good for us coming here today because they look to me like they are about the same speed. And, the undulation in these greens are about like they were last week. Yeah, it wasn't very hard to convert over to them.

LEE TREVINO: Probably the toughest one we play.

LEE TREVINO: This is the longest one we play. I had 180 yards, 190 yards so many times today, I got to the point, I said, "Man, give me something else; lie to me - anything." Yeah, this is -- it is a pleasure playing something that is tough, long. Yeah, we don't play anything -- most of the course that we play we have to do a lot of laying up and stuff. You don't have to do a whole lot here. If there is a lay-up hole here, might be a couple, you might lay up on 15, the par 5 because of the two little ponds on both sides. There is no reason to go with a driver there. And then I think most of the players will probably lay up on 16 and possibly on 18. You know, you can hit the ball through, but the rest of it. I mean, it is a big golf course, big, big par 3s, big course. I wish we play a lot of them like this long and this tough, yeah.

LEE TREVINO: I like anything that makes it tough, you know what I'm saying? I think that -- yeah, I think we play like the U.S. Open, we play long course, I mean, they played long. With Tradition, it is pretty long, but then when you put the time of year that we play The Tradition, and the altitude in Scottsdale, it doesn't make the golf course all that long. The ball rolls a lot and even though it -- it may register 6,800, 7,000 yards, it is not playing that. I do not know of any other course that we play that is any harder than this one. Tampa is pretty tough. Yeah, because of all the hazards but -- and it is long too. Yeah, the one we play in Tampa.

LEE TREVINO: Yes. 69 has been, I think, my best score all year. I made a statement there on 18 that 69 today was probably a 64 someplace else. To shoot 69 on this golf course, yeah, on some of the other courses we play, would have been a pretty low round.

LEE TREVINO: I made a hell of a putt there. I mean, that is just -- it is just tough to get into that flag and I hit that first putt, man, I knew I hit it too hard when I hit it. What did I make 10-footer coming back? I guess ten or twelve feet, yeah.

LEE TREVINO: I ain't showing up. I am not going to play. I am not playing in the rain. I don't have a rain suit. Is it going to be bad? You know they said it was go going to be bad today. It was a beautiful day. Don't listen -- listen, don't -- whatever you do, don't ever pay attention to the weatherman. They are the only people in the world that can be wrong 90% of the time and keep their job. Don't worry about that. You know, you never know, the weather may be perfect. We can play this golf course with a lot of rain, though. This is a sandy soil. It will drain very quick here. Very, very quick.

LEE TREVINO: No. Irwin might get tired next year. He has got to defend a lot of times. All we have got to do is sneak around and not play the tournaments he plays and we will have a hell of a year because he is going to -- his schedule -- he can't do his schedule the way he wants to. That is true. I mean, if he won nine tournaments, that is nine weeks that there ain't nothing he can get around. He has got to go.

LEE TREVINO: I only won seven, but I was playing a lot any way. No, didn't bother me. First year I played 30 something tournaments, 36, 35 tournaments or something. The next year I played -- remember, I made a prediction that I would play 90 tournaments the first three years on the SENIOR TOUR and I played 115, or 112, I think it was first three years.

LEE TREVINO: Win a couple of times next year and go over the million dollar mark would be -- I would say would be a successful year for me next year. Now that I have found my old move, I don't think I will have any problem with it. Because I work. I don't have any problem with that.

LEE TREVINO: Yeah, I have a shuffle. If you look at all the old films, I used to stand up over the ball, look up at the hole and when I came back down and looked at the ball, I did a two-step forward. Then I would hit the ball. Because I start with the ball way forward. You see, if I don't move my body, to where the ball gets back in the center of my stance, I start hooking. Then I start fighting it. Then I start pushing and then you start blocking and there is no hit on the ball. The ball doesn't go any distance, you see. I didn't find it until yesterday after the Pro Am. If I would have kept score yesterday in the Pro Am, I would have shot probably 82; maybe '83. I didn't keep score. But I would have not have broken 80 - I will tell you that.

LEE TREVINO: Just went out and realized I wasn't doing it. I tried it once. I said, you know, I don't think I am moving -- I tried to move the ball back, stand there and hit it in the center of my stance, I couldn't do it. And, I said I wonder if I can do this little shuffle. I did it, boom, and there it went. And the ball fell off. And I said look at -- then I -- I was sore this morning because I hit so many balls with 3- and 4-irons. I haven't been able to hit a 3- and 4-iron. I was hitting it so good on the driving range I wouldn't quit. I just kept hitting them an hitting them. I practiced 'til 3 o'clock. I finished at noon, yeah.

LEE TREVINO: I don't want anybody around me.

LEE TREVINO: I am a loaner, always been a loner. I don't travel with anybody. I don't have any friends. I say hello to everybody out here, but when I leave, I don't even answer the telephone. No. I don't want anybody around me when I am practicing or telling me I am doing this. If I found one of those gurus that can beat me, I will take some lessons from him. Those guys -- these guys teach these guys -- all these half-price guys teach guys that have made it and won all these tournaments all these years. Tell me -- grab somebody out of the gallery and make them a pro and see how tough that is. Not hard to teach somebody that has won 16 Majors. I mean, all you have got to do is give them a hot dog every once in awhile and a Coke and say go get them, maybe. You kidding me. That is like the fight, isn't it, the guy in the corner, he crosses himself. They ask the priest, they say, "Does that help you?" He said, "If you can fight." You can't fight, that ain't going to help you, I am going to tell you.

LEE TREVINO: In 1967.

LEE TREVINO: No 1968, you are right, 1968. Actually, to tell you the truth, it was not a shank because the ball went about 205 yards. A shank wouldn't go that far. I was -- I hit a 3-iron. I was going to hit -- I was trying to hit it real hard. I got in front of it. I pushed it to about 30, 40 -- no, about 30 yards to the right of the green. But I was pin-high and I wedged it up. I bogeyed the hole and Roberto DeVicenzo won it. Best thing that ever happened to me because the next week -- I won the next week and won the U.S. Open. I had no contracts. If I had won that tournament, UniRoyal was trying to sign me and some other guys were trying to sign me, give me contracts. And, I won the U.S. Open in 1968 without a contract. Yeah, I didn't have any contracts at all. In fact, UniRoyal was trying to give me a $5,000 contract. And when I won, the guy says, "Well, no sense in talking to you now, isn't it?" I said, "Sure isn't." Sure, yeah, I pushed a 3-iron and Roberto won that tournament.

LEE TREVINO: That is okay. I don't mind that. Don't bother me. Nothing bothers me.

LEE TREVINO: I felt great this morning. I felt great. As a matter of fact I haven't been able to sleep past 4:00 and because I have had so much on my mind, I have been playing so poorly this morning, I slept until 7. It has been a long time since I slept 'til 7:00. Because I was kind of -- hell, I was in the room in there. They have got too much glass stuff in the room. I got to watch swinging in that room there. Everything is glass. I said, I know I am going to break something before I get out of here because, man, I was in there -- when I was doing that dance, I am sure glad I had all my blinds pulled because them people might have thought I was having -- in my underwear, man, doing the two-step by myself.

LEE TREVINO: I haven't done it since when I injured my neck. See, I wasn't able to stay down so I quit doing it three years ago, I guess, wasn't it?

LEE TREVINO: Because I had the operation done two years ago. I had a plate put in, in here. And, yeah, I have been standing still trying to, you know, just kind of rotate the club with my hands where I couldn't, you know, really let go of it. A lot of strain on your neck as you go through the ball here, see -- you are trying to keep this head back as long as possible and that is pulling. I had too much pain up here so I was hitting the ball and going with it. But, I wasn't doing the shuffle. It has been three years since I have done that.

LEE TREVINO: No, that is -- I have had four surgeries.

LEE TREVINO: Yeah, that one was tough, but I thought that I could come back from it, yeah, no problem. I have had two lower back operations too and then I had the thumb, the collateral ligament on the thumb done. But, that doesn't bother me.

LEE TREVINO: I had a problem with the shoulder, but it wasn't -- it was lack of exercise upper body. In other words, there was, believe it or not, as strong as I am, my shoulder was weak and I started doing the old bungy rope stuff and I don't have any problem with it. I have had to withdraw from a lot of tournaments because of the spasms in my back, upper back; not lower. And, we couldn't find out what is wrong with it. Finally, the doctor in Texas there that I went to says to me, he did all these tests and whatever, and he comes in sits in the chair looks right at me he says, "It is not my problem." He said, "I can't find anything wrong with you." He said, "There is something muscular wrong with you or the way you are swinging the club." And, he says, "You better start looking at your old swing or something, and go back because you are stretching some way you are not supposed to." And, I started the exercise program, closed my stance down a little bit, you know, and it went away.

LEE TREVINO: Yeah, that is the only problem that I have had.

LEE TREVINO: If it happens, it happens. It doesn't happen, it is not like Santa Claus is not coming to the house. He will be there. He was there yesterday and the day before. Santa Claus comes to my house everyday, yeah. Don't make no difference to me. I am going to go hit me some wedges because I hit a couple of bad ones today.