Royal Birkdale Open Champions, 1954 – 2017
“You don’t know what pressure is until you play for five bucks with only two in your pocket.” – Lee Trevino
1971 was a very good year for Lee Trevino. The man from Dallas learned the game playing three holes behind the Dallas Athletic Club caddy shack and then began to refine it as a Marine Corps corporal who played with (and against) Corps officers. Then, 11 years into his pro career, 32-year old Trevino won the Canadian Open, then the U.S. Open, and then The Open Championship. (That wouldn’t happen again until Tiger did it in 2000.)
At the 100th Open Championship Trevino, Tony Jacklin, Argentina’s Vincente Fernández, Howie Johnson, and Taiwan’s Lu Liang Huan danced around each other during the first round, but by the second round Trevino and Jacklin were sharing a 7-under, one-shot lead. Trevino pulled ahead in the third round and, despite a fourth round charge by Huan, finished at 14-under and one shot clear of the Taiwanese.
Jack Nicklaus finished at T5 and Gary Player at T7 that year at Royal Birkdale, and Lee Trevino hoisted the Claret Jug but lost money. In fact, Trevino remembered, he always lost money when he played The Open.
"I made 13,000 pounds, but after traveling over there with [then wife] Claudia, paying the caddie, donating 5,000 to the nuns, I was in the hole. I won the tournament and lost money."
The following year, 1972, Trevino successfully defended his Open Championship title at Muirfield, the first player to do so since Arnold Palmer’s 1962 victory at Royal Troon. For both Palmer and Trevino, the magic began on Birkdale’s links.