Lee Trevino talks Tiger Woods and the 2013 majors
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| Lee Trevino talks Tiger Woods. (Getty Images) |
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I recently had a chance to talk to
Who do you play Tiger Woods '14 with?
My kids play it. My kid has all that stuff, and all his buddies come over and they get out there and scream at each other and bet $1 or whatever they do -- I don't know what they do. My attention span isn't that good.
Do you make them play with your character?
They like to play Tiger, and I don't blame them. They recognize him, heck, I'm so far removed, I'm 73 years old, Tiger's 37, so you're talking two generations there.
I saw you had your own Nintendo game back in the day.
Oh, we did that many, many, many moons ago. I never played that one, either.
Is this your first year to be in the game?
Yeah, they're doing a Tiger and Arnold Palmer commercial out here for it. I come in at the last part for a split second.
It has two of the courses where the majors are at this year.
Yeah, that's great. They got Augusta and Oak Hill on there.
You won at three of four courses where majors are being played this year. Which was your favorite to play?
Merion was my favorite. It was a very small, tight little golf course. It wasn't very long, not going to be very long again this year. It'll be very tight. Rough will be high. I talked to [USGA director] Mike Davis about it -- it'll give the pros a tremendous amount of problems if they can control the water to it. If it rains and softens up the golf course, these professionals today will have a good time with that course because they'll be driving the ball with 3-woods, 5-woods, you know, hybrid and whatever.
Muirfield is a different story. Again, if they have no rain over there in Scotland, that golf course gets extremely dangerous.
Augusta, I don't have to tell you much about that. It's extremely long. They've stretched it out to the point that a short hitter probably doesn't have a prayer there.
Oak Hill -- they re-did some holes at Oak Hill, and it's a lot longer now. I'm sure they will not be able to control the water. It'll probably play soft, which will make it longer.
How different is Augusta now than when you played it?
They'd be shooting in the 50s today, these guys, as far as they hit it, yeah, they'd be shooting in the 50s if they hadn't stretched Augusta out. They would have had to do something with Augusta to make it extremely hard.
What they would have done, they would have had to put the rough way up and made it really tight. And that isn't what Mr. Jones wanted. Mr. Jones didn't want rough up there because he wanted the best player to win. And sometimes when you have deep rough, the best player doesn't win because when you both hit it in the rough one can get lucky and one can get unlucky as far as the lie is concerned.
I understand you can play the old-time Augusta in the video game. How would you have fared on that course?
Yeah, 1934. I would have been fine because that was kind of bump and run. That was before irrigation. In other words, you're at the mercy of the Lord about watering it. I grew up on golf courses with no water, so I learned to bump and run. That's why I won the British Open twice. I would have done OK.
Who is the best ball-striker in the world right now?
I don't see how you can dispute Tiger's ball-striking right now. I thought the best ball-striker ever was Sam Snead. Day in and day out, no one could hit the ball like Sam Snead could hit it. He was a phenomenal athlete, and he could do just about anything he wanted to with a golf ball. He's overlooked in that department. Right now as far as ball-striking is concerned, I don't see how it gets any better than Tiger.
Tiger is a mechanic. A lot of guys are one-dimensional, and I think Tiger is way up on everybody because he can create different types of shots and that's what makes you a great player. You show up at the golf course one day and A-game isn't working, so you have to go to B or C. And that's what he can do.
How many days a week do you play golf now?
Oh, I don't play that often. I try to go out every day and hit a few balls here and there. The weather has to be perfect, though. If the wind's blowing over 12 miles per hour, I stay home. If it's under 75, I don't jive. If the sun's not out, I won't go out there. Being 73 years old and retired, I can pick and choose what I want to do.
Do you still walk all the time?
Hell, no. I ain't walking anywhere! I walk on the treadmill. I ain't walking on no golf course. And that's the other thing: if it rains and they say "cart path only," hell, I don't play. I walked for 45 years on Tour, I'm not walking anymore.
Who are you picking for the Masters right now?
No question, Tiger. I think he's going to win the Open. I'm picking him for the Open because he's not going to need a driver there and that's where he has some problems.
So you think he gets two majors this year?
I think he's going to win the Masters and the Open. Yep.
Here's a video of Trevino in the video game.
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