With six wins each, Lee Treviño and Betsy King rank seventh in the men’s and women’s grand prix winner rankings.
In addition to its fantastic game, Lee Trevino was – and is – well known for his everlasting smile and perennial good humor. Hence his nickname, the Happy Mexican, for the man who grew up in Garland, Dallas, in a humble cabin where there was no running water. He never knew his father and was raised by his mother and grandfather. When he was only 5 years old, in 1944, the then diminutive Lee had to go to work in the cotton plantations of Texas to help the meager family economy.
Fortunately for him, one day he got to know the world of golf thanks to an uncle of his who gave him a rustic golf club and a few balls and he was gladly invaded by the bug of this sport. Treviño began his flirtations with the world of golf as a caddy when he was only 8 years old and he soon learned the secrets of the game and began to stand out for his golfing skills. He attended school from time to time, but what occupied his time the most was work and playing golf.
At age 17, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. When he was discharged from the Army four years later, he returned to golf with a vengeance, gambling at courses in the Dallas and El Paso area. “You don’t know what the pressure is until you’re playing for five dollars and you only have two in your pocket,” he said referring to that time in his life.
A key moment in his sporting life was when he saw Ben Hogan at the Shady Oaks driving range in Fort Worth. From that day on, Treviño honed his golf to a fade that would make him one of the most accurate players in the history of the sport. Sometimes, when he shot iron to flag, he could be heard shouting “Don’t move, hole!”.
In 1960, he managed to become a professional in the sport. In the middle of that decade, a famous three-round duel took place at the El Paso Club between the then unknown Treviño and the now famous Ray Floyd. They ended up tied.
From then on, the Mexican’s name began to be heard in the American golf concert, and in 1967 he fulfilled one of his greatest dreams: to play on the PGATour, that is, the U.S. Tour. He immediately proved his great worth, and in 1968 he won the US Open, his first major. From that year until 1974, he lived his best moments and achieved his most resounding successes, winning five of his six majors during that period. The 1971 season was especially fruitful for him, as he won two Grand Slam events: the US Open (he defeated Jack Nicklaus in an electrifying 18-hole playoff) and the British Open, which he also won the following year. His last triumph in a major was in 1984 at the PGA Championship, which he had won for the first time just a decade earlier. The only major Lee was unable to win was the Augusta Masters.
His good luck on the course was so good that he even miraculously saved his life after being struck by lightning during a tournament in 1975. Although the injuries were serious and lingered, with serious back problems, he was able to recover the good game that made him famous and in 1980 he won a new PGA Tour Vardon Trophy, an award he won five times. In 1970 he was number one in earnings on the Tour and in 1971 he was elected Player of the Year.
Throughout his career on the PGA Tour, he scored 29 victories, the same number he has achieved on the Senior Tour.
Treviño, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame since 1981, is considered one of golf’s best and most creative hitters.
Among his most popular quotes is this one: “There is no such thing as natural touch; touch is something you create when you hit millions of balls”, and this one: “I’ve always had great confidence in Lee Treviño, but I’ve always paid for it”.
Also celebrated was this one, which had nothing to do with golf: “I’ve been struck by lightning, spent four years in the Marines, traveled all over the world and been everywhere you can imagine. I’m not afraid of anything…except my wife.”
Treviño made a lot of money, but he lost his fortune on two occasions due to erroneous investments. l.
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The star of the 80s
She was slow to join the U.S. Women’s Tour, the LPGA Tour, but when she did and got her first win she soon became the best player in the world, and was undoubtedly one of the most popular stars from the mid-1980s to the middle of the following decade. Elizabeth “Betsy” King, born August 13, 1955 in Reading, Pennsylvania, earned her first LPGA victory in 1984, at the age of 29, and over the course of her fruitful playing career she racked up a total of 34 wins, including six Grand Slam victories. Her successes were well rewarded financially, and the American became the first golfer to reach five million dollars in competitive earnings.
Her skills on the golf course were evident from an early age, and already in college, where she had Beth Daniel as a teammate, who would later become a member of the Golf Hall of Fame, she excelled especially in this sport. In 1976 she became the top-ranked amateur player in the US Women’s Open, LPGA, then turned professional and the following year she managed to enroll in the LPGA.
However, the path of this 1.65 m tall, blonde-haired woman was not initially one of roses, but rather of thorns, and her first triumph on the American Tour would take seven long years to arrive. It was at the Women’s Kemper Open, which became the point of no return and the road to uninterrupted success. That same season she won two more tournaments and finished second on four occasions, achieving twenty-one top ten finishes. As it could not be otherwise, she was distinguished with the title of Best Player of the Year.
From then on, Betsy experienced one of the best periods of her career, and between 1984 and 1989 she won a total of twenty LPGA Tour tournaments, more than any golfer, male or female, in that period. Since her first triumph, the Pennsylvania player scored at least one victory for the next ten years, with her peak season being 1989, when she won six times. She was in the top ten in the final earnings rankings from 1985 to 1995, and again in 1997. She was named Player of the Year in 1984, 1989, and 1993, and finished the same number of times at the top of the winnings ranking, in the three aforementioned seasons. In 1984 she crowned the year with $266,771 in prize money.
Curious, and somewhat frustrating, was 1993 for her, for although she was number one in earnings and recorded the best stroke average (also in 1987), she finished second no less than five times that year, including two majors. She consoled herself with at least one victory that year.
In the Grand Slam, King was undoubtedly a queen, if you will pardon the idiomatic paradox. Not in vain, she won a major per year from
1987 to 1992. Her sixth major came in 1997. When she won the 1992 LPGA Championship with 68, 66, 67 and 66 strokes, she became the first player in history to record four rounds under 70 in a women’s Grand Slam tournament. Apart from this triumph, she won the Kraft Nabisco Championship in 1987, 1990 and 1997, and the US Women’s Open in 1989 and 1990.
In terms of team competitions, Betsy participated as a player in five Solheim Cups between 1990 and 1998, and captained the U.S. team last year in this intercontinental competition against Europe, in which the Americans triumphed.
The last of her 34 individual victories came in 2001 (ShopRite LPGA Classic). In 1995, at the age of 40 and coinciding with her 30th win on the American Tour, she became one of the youngest golfers to be inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame.
King, who from 1994 to 2004 had the honor of having at least one tournament named after her every season on the LPGA Tour, was very committed to charitable causes, including working with agencies that help orphaned children in countries of the former Soviet Union.
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