ORLANDO — Lee Trevino stopped after completing his pro-am Thursday at the PNC Championship and started signing everything thrust his way.
Hats. Balls. Flags. A Sports Illustrated cover more than 50 years old.
After he was handed a ball, he looked at the autograph seeker and asked how many items he's signed for him during the day.
"Just this one," he was told.
"You know I have a good memory," the 84-year-old World Golf Hall of Famer said. "I'll pull you up on the internet and buy that s*** back."
The crowd laughed as the man slowly walked away.
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Trevino, the man known as "The Merry Mex," continues to entertain, even if the golf course is not one of his favorite places to be (more on that later).
Whether he's entertaining the amateurs in his group with stories about one of his six major titles, or how he met his second wife, or explaining why he is not completely up-to-date on all the golf news by pulling out a flip phone and saying, "the only reason I have this one is because when I stop at a red light you damn sure won't see me (he pretends to be texting)," Trevino is never without a story.
Like revealing that he told his wife, Claudia, when he gets home to Dallas on Monday he's going to bed and to not wake him up until after Christmas.
"You think Scrooge is a mean guy," Trevino said, laughing. "I don't want to do anything."
Trevino has played all 26 years of PNC Championship
Trevino's plan this week is to play 81 holes in five days at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, which, he says, is 54 more than he's played the entire year. The 36-hole PNC Championship starts Saturday.
Yet, Trevino does not enjoy playing golf. Well, most of the time.
Because come mid-December the PNC, which started as the Father/Son Challenge, always is on his calendar. And has been for all 26 years of the tournament.
Trevino is the only one to have played in every one of these events and by a wide margin. Next closest is Boca Raton's Bernhard Langer, who is in his 18th event.
Playing this year, with his son, Daniel, was an easy decision.
"Daniel and I are the best of buddies," Trevino said. "It kills me that I play badly now, that I'm 84 years old and I can't help him much."
Team Trevino's best finish was a T3 in 2020. He and Daniel tied for 13th last year.
Otherwise, Trevino isn't much for social golf.
"I don't really care too much about going out and playing with four people and answering 19,000 questions about golf and giving them a lesson and doing all this goofy stuff," he said. "And I'm not going to play by myself so I don't play at all.
"I'm a pretty private guy. And now that I've done this for so long and I'm 84 years old I don't need to do this stuff."
And when he does get on the course, he gets frustrated. After all, this is a man who won 92 worldwide events in a career that lasted more than 50 years.
And his biggest source of frustration: putting.
"The nerves are no good with the putting," he said. "It's just not me. It comes with age. Most people can't putt anymore. And it's very frustrating when you can hit the drive 250 down the middle of the fairway. Hit a 9 on the green. And three-putt."
He worries how LIV is changing game
When it comes to the state of the game, Trevino is as concerned about amateurs as he is about the future of the PGA Tour.
He worries the weekend golfer is being priced out of the game.
"We got to do something for the blue-collar guy," he said. "It's getting back like it was in the '40s and '50s to where it's a rich man's game."
And right now, it's being played by very rich men at the highest level. Trevino understands why PGA Tour pros have opted for the money being thrown around by LIV Golf and its financial backer, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. He even said if something like LIV came along in his heyday it would have been tempting. Trevino played in 481 PGA Tour events, won 29 and had 166 top 10s.
He made just under $3.5 million. Which is $500,000 less than the winner of each LIV event will earn.
But what concerns him more is when Wells Fargo says it's ending its sponsorship deal with the PGA Tour following the 2024 event at Quail Hollow. The decision, reportedly, came after Wells Fargo was asked to increase its financial commitment.
"We're in trouble with this thing because we don't own anything," Trevino said. "Who owns the PGA Tour? Nobody. That's the problem with it. It's a nonprofit organization and nobody owns it. Here comes (LIV) with $600 billion in a kitty. They can buy a lot of stuff.
"I'm afraid these dominoes are lined up. The Wells Fargo fell over … it hasn't hit the ground yet all the way, it hasn't touched that other one yet. But if it touches the other one and then that one touches the other one, then we got a big problem."
