Latest news with #CliffordRoberts
Times
11-07-2025
- Sport
- Times
Lee Trevino: I can't wait to get up each day just to hear what I say
The day I speak to Lee Trevino marks 50 years since he was struck by lightning. Cue the line about how he would deal with being caught in another electrical storm during a round. 'I said I'd hold a one-iron to the sky because even God can't hit a one-iron.' It is a typically sharp line that masks painful experience and is the entry point to stories of near-death dalliances, Open titles, a king-size bed in his gym, a cast of hustlers and the grim loneliness of the outsider. 'I can't wait to get up in the morning just to hear what I have to say,' Trevino begins. Dallas-born of Mexican heritage, Trevino is 85 and still lives ebulliently in his native city in a house with an enormous swimming pool built by a former Olympic water polo player. He won six majors, including back-to-back Opens in 1971 and 1972, and had another nine top-five finishes on the biggest stages. He might have had a grand slam had he not boycotted the Masters in his prime after a dispute with the Augusta National chairman, Clifford Roberts. 'I tried to cover it up by saying the course did not fit my game, but it was him. He was not a nice person,' Trevino says. The row emanated from playing a practice round with a caddie who did not have a pass for that day. 'Here come the boys from the clubhouse, Cliff Roberts and all. I got in his face and came this far from left-hooking him. I went back but from that day I had a bad taste in my mouth. We never spoke again.' By contrast, as another Open arrives, it is hard to think of a player more in thrall to the event's romance, history and its 'cathedral' at St Andrews. 'Get me a shack there and I'd be happy to live right at the end by the greenkeeper's house,' Trevino says. They can have his ashes too. The Open fitted Trevino, who never had a golf lesson and had learnt to play by blocking, 'keeping my left hand and club face square'. A perceived weakness thus became a strength. 'The problem in my game was I couldn't hit the ball high, but as far as links courses, oh my God, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It suited me because I hit the ball so low they were putting helmets on the birds.' This affection for the British and Irish encompasses players. Christy O'Connor Sr was 'smooth as silk, a swing like melted butter', Peter Oosterhuis was 'one of the finest', and he is forever embedded in the Tony Jacklin story. When Trevino chipped in on the 17th at Muirfield in 1972 the effect on Jacklin was profound. 'I was never the same,' Jacklin once told me after losing that Open. Trevino's take is typically colourful. 'Tony would never admit this but he didn't have a life. They were running him to death. Get up at 6am, do a clinic, play 18 holes, go to this dinner, that cocktail party. The managers are at home taking 25 per cent and they ran him ragged. 'But God, what a handsome guy! He's still got that sweet swing, boy, but not nearly as fast — he couldn't get a citation in a school zone now.' Another Jacklin story highlights Trevino's maverick mischief. 'Yeah, Wentworth, World Match Play. Tony walks up to me on the 1st tee and says, 'I don't want to talk today, I just want to play golf.' I said, 'I don't want you to talk either, just listen.' Anyway we had 26 birdies and three eagles between us. I beat him on the last hole.' The natural penchant for one-liners fuelled his popularity, but it was also a defence. Anti-Mexican bigotry was an issue, and Trevino would become a loner living on room service when on tour. Eventually, he began drinking and derailed, but you could understand the culture clash when he arrived with his Latino looks and home-made swing. 'I didn't know my dad and my grandfather raised me,' he says. 'We had nothing and I mean nothing. In summer we'd walk five miles to pick cotton and sleep under a tree in a tent. Then my grandad got a job as a gravedigger and we moved to another sharecropper's house, no electricity, no plumbing. 'I dropped out of school at 15, got in trouble and joined the Marine Corps at 16. I was a machine gunner in the Pacific. Got out and went to work on a construction crew building a nine-hole course in Dallas. I welded the irrigation system and started hitting a few balls.' That was the start but he says the Marine Corps had averted a premature end. 'I should be dead or in prison,' he says. 'I had no discipline. When you're 15 and doing what the hell you want, that's not cool. Somewhere along the line someone's going to shoot you or you're gonna shoot somebody. 'I mean, what do you do when you're hungry and broke? You turn to violence. All the kids that I knew, all my friends, they're gone. I'm still looking up. I don't think they're up there but anyway . . .' After getting out of the Marines, Trevino's life of diversions took him into the golfing underbelly and the hustlers. As a caddie he began playing for a buck, two, $10. 'I never played a tournament so nobody knew.' Enter the tremendously titled Titanic Thompson. 'One time there was a poker game in a little town outside of Dallas. Titanic told this farmer to put 600 melons in his truck and break down opposite the hotel. At two o'clock the poker game breaks and they all come out for a smoke. Titanic says, 'That's a lot of melons over there. We should bet $2,000 apiece and figure out how many there are.' They couldn't resist. So the farmer counted them. There's a lot of gullible people out there. He was one of the greatest hustlers I ever saw.' One day in 1960 Raymond Floyd came to El Paso and Thompson convinced him to play against a lad called Trevino for $1,000 a round. 'Titanic gave me $100 a day plus expenses to play these matches. Anyway, I won the first two matches against Floyd. Lost the second.' When his reputation grew and challenges were harder to find, he took to playing with a soda bottle. 'It was a par-three course. I could back-spin it, hit it 100 yards. I used to shoot two over par and never lost a match with it. I've still got that bottle.' His rise was rocket-fuelled as well as soda-propelled, and he won the 1968 US Open at Oak Hill in only his second year on tour. In the space of 21 days in 1971 he won the US Open, Canadian Open and the Open Championship. He married Claudia, his third wife, in 1983, and it is clear he loves his life and the game that gave him a passport to fame and fortune. He lets autograph requests pile up until there are about 150 and then sits down at his kitchen table and answers them all. 'I go to the range and it makes me sick to see how a guy is swinging,' Trevino says. 'I straighten him and he says thanks. I say, 'God dang it, the game's not that hard, the ball's not moving.' Everyone goes to an instructor. I can show you everything you need in 30 minutes.' The old ones are often the best, especially in an age of anodyne PR filter, but Trevino is not frozen in the past. Indeed, he has known Scottie Scheffler, the world No1, since he moved to Dallas at the age of six. 'His dad was looking for a club and I was a member of Royal Oaks. The teaching pro there was a good friend of mine, Randy Smith [still Scheffler's coach]. We advocated coming inside on the ball and Scottie did it better than anybody because of his right foot shuffling back. That's why he doesn't pull many. He's closer to the ball. 'He always had something. The summers are scorchers here and the kids would wear shorts, but Scottie would always come out in a pair of slacks. He'd say, 'I'm going to be a pro someday and pros don't wear shorts.' The nicest guy. If he's not another Arnold Palmer I've never seen one. He doesn't play up like Arnie, he's more quiet, but nothing bothers him.' In April Trevino was glued to the Masters, pulling for Rory McIlroy and thrilled when he won, and will watch every shot next week. 'I don't know of anyone playing who's more of a shot-maker than Rory,' he says. 'That's what you'll need at Portrush.' He can also understand McIlroy's grumpiness when news of his non-conforming driver emerged during the US PGA Championship. 'He's going to the tee, these guys are full of Bud and they're saying, 'Rory, is this driver legal?' You don't need that shit. 'He could have used some humour. I'd have said, 'I'm trying to be No1 and if I can get another five or six illegal clubs in this bag, I'm going to try.' ' With two children, he says he is as happy as June bug and still goes to the course every day. 'I respect it, I worship it. And when I get beaten up I go to the shop and reshaft my clubs.' We rewind to the start and he tells me about being struck by lightning during the 1975 Western Open. 'It helped me more than hurt me,' he says. 'I'd got to the point where I was partying too much. I wasn't doing the right thing and my life was going backwards. Socialising will kill you in the end. In the back of my mind I wanted to prove to people I'm still good. So I started running, weightlifting.' Remarkably, he won another major, the 1984 US PGA, as well as another four at senior level. This fitness regime has continued and he describes his location, a giant house gym where he sleeps in his king-size bed. 'If I get up in the night to go to the bathroom, I'll pick up a barbell. I work out four times a day. I think I'm going to live until 150 but my life is getting dim and you can fall over at any time.' Intriguingly, he says there is no memorabilia or golfing photographs on show in his house. It is all stuck in the bedroom, stacked floor-to-ceiling, the furniture removed for mothballed memories. 'Yesterday's gone,' he says. Gone, but thankfully, not forgotten.
USA Today
13-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Why do Masters winners and members get green jackets? The tradition, explained
Why do Masters winners and members get green jackets? The tradition, explained Welcome to FTW Explains, a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. Watching the Masters on Sunday and suddenly wondering why all the members and winners of the tournament at Augusta National wear those same green jackets and the origin story behind it? We've got you covered. Editor's note: A version of this post was originally published 2022. The green jacket might be one of the best non-trophy trophies in all of sports, right? It's wearable bragging rights, one that you can put on for any event, from a day at Wimbledon (Sergio Garcia) to heading to a local Chick-fil-a (thanks, Patrick Reed). But what's up with the whole green jackets thing? Let's help you out and dive in all things green jackets: Why have Augusta National members wear green jackets at all? There's an origin story here, via The first story is Augusta National co-founder and one of golf's greatest champions, Bobby Jones, attended a dinner at 12-time Open Championship venue Royal Liverpool in England where club captains were wearing matching jackets to denote their position. Jones liked that. The other story is that Augusta National co-founder Clifford Roberts figured it was a way to identify club members as 'reliable sources of information' to visiting non-members — and to let waiters know who got the check at dinner. In 1937, that's when the green jackets started rolling in. Why are the jackets green at Augusta? Specifically, the color is Pantone 342 per Golfweek. The story I found behind this came from Today's Golfer: So when Augusta National opened in January 1933, [Bobby] Jones floated the idea to business partner Clifford Roberts. The only issue was the colour. Red, yellow and even 'Georgia peach' were all considered but quickly dismissed. Then, while out walking Roberts' eye was taken by the leaves underpinning the many azalea bushes found on the former Fruitland Nursery site. Known as verdant green, the choice was made and a legend was born. When did the Masters winners start getting green jackets? Back in 1949, Sam Snead got one when he won his first Masters at Augusta. How do the golfers get jackets in their exact sizes? They get a temporary one that's approximately their size before they're given a customized fitting after their win. Do you get more than one green jacket if you win multiple Masters? Nope! Back in 2019, when Tiger Woods won, we learned this one. You can bring the green jacket home for a year after your win, but then it has to be brought back and worn only at Augusta. And if you win again, you get your same jacket to put on after your victory.
Axios
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
At the Masters, a $1.50 pimento cheese sandwich steals the show
When is a pimento cheese sandwich a ritual? When it's at the Masters. Why it matters: Golf fans who are lucky enough to score a badge to the Masters don't just rave about the drives and putts. They love the absurdly affordable food that has become legend. Catch up quick: Augusta National is one of the most exclusive golf clubs in the world, but its menu at the Masters is priced for the masses. At the very top of the pyramid of culinary excellence: the $1.50 pimento cheese sandwich that comes with its own green jacket (a green plastic wrapper). How it works: The tradition of affordable food at the VIP event dates back decades and is fairly simple, Clifford Roberts, a former Augusta National chairman, wrote in his 1976 history of the club. "We believe that one of the reasons the Masters is popular with patrons of the game is because they can obtain good food and drink at reasonable prices." Fun fact: When Augusta National changed caterers in the early 2010s, the new vendor needed six months to finally recreate the closely guarded original recipe, Golf Digest reported in 2022. The other side: Not everyone's a fan. The AJC's Ken Sugiura, who's covering the tournament all week, likened the rarified experience to "eating mushy cheddar cheese." Make it at home: Unfortunately, the tournament's official packages that include pimento cheese, egg salad and other foods to host your own Masters party are sold out. However, the internet has plenty of recipes mimicking the famous sandwich. Give it your best shot while watching the tournament at home — and use Duke's Mayonnaise.
The Guardian
09-04-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Augusta provides a president-free oasis amid the Trump maelstrom
Augusta National must be the only known corner of the western world where you can't buy a Coca-Cola. The company has its worldwide headquarters a couple of hours' drive down the I-20 in Atlanta, its chief executives seem to receive a standing invitation to join the membership, and the club's co-founders Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones made their money running a chain of bottling plants. But still, there's no Coke. Or Sprite, or Powerade, let alone, God forbid in this part of the world, any Pepsi if that happens to be your preference. Instead, the concession stands around the grounds pump 'Lemon-Lime', 'Sports Drink', and good old generic 'Cola'. There's no Bud, Coors, or Miller Lite, only 'Domestic', either, no Heineken or Corona, only 'Imported'. Outside of what's written on the players' own kit, there's only one brand allowed at Augusta National, and it's the club's own map and flag logo. Which might be why the one brand that's bigger than Coca-Cola's right now doesn't have a lot of a whole cut-through here. The odd thing about the atmosphere at Augusta National this week is that it seems to be the one place on earth where no one is talking about the one thing everyone is talking about. So that on the newstands on Wednesday morning, the New York Times front page lead was 'Brushing off Concerns, Trump Pushes Forward with His Steep Tariffs', the Wall Street Journal's was 'U.S. Sets China Tariffs at 104%, Beijing Vows 'Fight to the End'', and the Augusta Chronicle's was 'Renovations by Augusta National bring in golf's biggest name'. Which is Tiger Woods, if you were wondering. But the sad fact is that Donald Trump might just be the second-most famous player on the planet. The biggest golf story in the sport last week wasn't Brian Harman's win at the Valero Texas Open, but Trump's decision to skip the ceremony to mark the return of four US soldiers who had died in a training exercise in Lithuania so that he could meet with a group of executives from LIV and play in his club championship at Jupiter. He, ahem, finished in an unlikely tie for first place. Again. Trump has inveigled himself into every aspect of the sport. He is entangled with LIV and has been busy trying to broker a deal between them and the PGA. Even Woods, who, like just about every other famous player on the Tour, has played plenty of rounds with the president, has just announced that he's dating his former daughter-in-law. But Trump is mercifully absent from Augusta. 'A colder than usual January has been conducive to a near-perfect early spring bloom of azaleas,' opined chairman Fred Ridley at the start of his annual press conference, like a man reading the crop report for flowering ornamentals. Ridley roamed over a range of topics, slow play, driving distance, the club's stance on domestic violence and whether or not they were right to invite former champion Ángel Cabrera, but Trump's name didn't come up once. The fire may be ranging out on the other side of the pine trees that surround the grounds, but apparently the air's sweet as Georgia Peach ice cream sandwiches here inside them. You wonder if it's the same in the clubhouse. If you want to know the gossip on Wall Street right now, Augusta National's about the best place you could be. The membership is a who's who of corporate America, Warren Buffett's one, so is Bill Gates, so are the CEOs of Amazon, Delta, and Santander, the former CEOs of Bank of America, American Express and IBM, Condoleezza Rice is here, and so is Rex Tillerson, and those are only the ones you know, there are hundreds more you don't, Dirk Ziff, Vanderbilt polo shirt, Horseflesh Meanstreak VII (the exact list is kept top secret so some of these names may or may not be quite exactly right). Trump isn't thought to be one himself. It's impossible to formally confirm one way or the other, but you know it the same way you do that someone's just become a vegan, you can be sure they'll tell you themselves. Augusta's president is, and always will be, Dwight Eisenhower. I like Ike, You Like Ike, around here they all like Ike. He has a driveway named after him outside the grounds, his own cabin by the 10th tee, they even keep preserved slices of the old oak tree that he always used to hit with his drives up the 17th. The same Eisenhower who argued so forcefully for both foreign aid and free trade, and who signed the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act, which has shaped US economic policy around the world for the past 70 years, less the past seven days. Eisenhower's policies were the antithesis of Trump's, and Augusta's attitude towards the game is the obverse of his, too. Not that they'd ever say it publicly. How many millions have the members here lost between them in the past week? How many of the thousands of who travelled here from around the world felt uneasy crossing the border? How do the four Canadians in the field feel about the prospect of becoming the 51st state? And yet all anyone wants to talk about is the weather out. You notice Trump most by his ringing absence from the conversation and to be honest that's something of a sweet relief. Augusta National's always been an oasis, but this year's tournament feels a bit like the final scene of attending the dinner party at the end of the world.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Masters 2025: Augusta National had plans for a '19th hole' ... what happened?
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Any Masters fan can play through the sweep of Augusta National's holes in their sleep: the wide left swing of No. 2, the steep dive of No. 10, the bold and tantalizing challenge of No. 13. But only the true magnolia aficionados know that there was almost a 19th hole on the world-famous golf course. It's true. In the initial designs for Augusta National, Dr. Alister MacKenzie created a short, 19th hole at the request of the club's co-founders, Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones. The plan was in keeping with many golf courses of the day. The 19th hole isn't just an easy nickname for the post-round bar; what the Scots dubbed the 'bye hole' is a popular feature of many courses, particularly in Europe. Advertisement 'Clifford Roberts, Grantland Rice and some of the other governors thought it might be interesting to have a real nineteenth hole, so that the loser could have the opportunity of getting his money back by playing double or quits,' MacKenzie wrote of his designs. 'This nineteenth hole will be an attractive plateau green, narrow at one end, where the flag will usually be placed, but wide at the other end so as to give a safety route to the player who has not the courage or skill to pitch to the narrow end of the green.' Augusta National's 19th — named 'Double or Quits,' the British version of 'double or nothing' — would have run about 90 yards, with a tee box between what's now the 9th and 18th greens, running roughly parallel to the clubhouse. The green would have been what's now Augusta National's putting green. (Taylar Sievert/Yahoo Sports illustration) So what scotched the 19th hole? The aesthetic reason was that a 19th hole would have impeded the view of the course from the clubhouse; the real reason was money, or the lack thereof. In sharp contrast to the vast financial resources available to the club now, the early days of Augusta National were marked by financial concerns that bordered on desperation. Advertisement 'They definitely wanted to do it. They were going to build two golf courses,' says David Owen, Augusta National historian and author of The Making of The Masters. 'They were going to have big (clubhouse) windows looking out over that part of the course, and then they couldn't build that either. Everybody was for it, they wanted to do it, and they didn't have the dough.' The lost 19th hole was emblematic of the larger financial challenges that faced Augusta National in its earliest, pre-World War II days. Initial plans for the club, which opened in December 1932, included riding trails and tennis courts, as well as two dozen real estate lots around the property. 'It's amazing. They tried for 20 years to sell real estate next to the golf course, and they never could,' Owen says. 'The only customer was a guy who was a member, and he bought two lots, just above the first green.' One of Roberts' last acts was to buy that property and tear down the house, which was clearly visible from the first tee. Want to feel even more regret? Consider that in Augusta National's earliest days, initiation fees were $350 — about $7,000 in today's dollars — and annual dues were $60. Augusta National actively sought out members — Roberts' initial goal was a membership base of 1,800, approximately twice what the number is today — and the application was an index card. Few were returned, and after three years of drives, Augusta National's membership stood at … 76. Advertisement 'After the war, finances gradually improved,' Owen says. 'It really shows you what it was like to try to build a golf club during the Great Depression.' It's fortunate from a logistics standpoint that the 19th wasn't built. The tee box became the first driving range for the club, out across the massive area now bracketed by the 18th and 9th fairways and 2nd green. In place of the 19th's prospective green, the National built the putting green, which is both a perfect place to watch the players up close, and the site of the annual green jacket ceremony that concludes the Masters. In any case, the 19th — like that prospective second course — is literally just a dream hole. And for the patrons and players at Augusta National, that's just fine. 'Augusta doesn't need a 19th hole,' Shane Lowry says. 'It's perfect just like it is.'
