Trevino Captures Players Championship
A driving range tip helps Trevino beat a star-studded cast at Sawgrass
Welcome back to the Tour Backspin journey through the past as we head back to 1980 and the Tournament Players Championship at Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. The final round featured a final group of Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player. Scroll down to learn more about this exciting week on the 1980 schedule.
PAST TOUR BACKSPIN ARTICLES ON THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP
Lanny Wadkins prevails in windy conditions at Sawgrass to win 1979 Tournament Players Championship.
Despite low expectations, Fred Couples captures the 1984 Players Championship.
Enjoy the golf this week, an almost major week, from Ponte Vedra.
What a wild finish in Orlando for the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Russell Henley broke Collin Morikawa’s heart with an chip-in eagle at 70th hole to take the title. We’ve got some of the action in the Clips I Loved, and I also give my take on the tournament in the PGA TOUR Wrap-Up.
Did you watch the Arnold Palmer Invitational? Did you care about the shot of the tournament not being shown live due to a commercial from NBC and Rolex? Let us know in this week’s The Tour Backspin Poll. We’ve got a great “what might have been” in this week’s Music Clip with John Lennon doing “Just Like Starting Over” in a tour rehearsal in 1980. The theatrical trailer for the 1980 film, “The Shining” starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall is freaky. Watch in the Tour Backspin Goes To The Movies.
Lee Trevino talks about wedge play in this week’s Play Like a Pro. The Vintage Ad has an ad from 1980 featuring a pretty spiffy Jack Nicklaus. Scroll down to view.
The latest episode of The Tour Backspin Show has dropped. Host Larry Baush (me!) talks with Bruce Devlin and Mike Gonzalez about their podcast Fore The Good Of The Game. It’s a video podcast and is available on Substack and YouTube. Please subscribe to The Tour Backspin Show on YouTube and help us reach the threshold of subscribers needed to qualify for revenue.
The Tour Backspin Poll
We finally cracked our unanimous streak in last week’s Tour Backspin Poll where we asked you your views on the setup at the Cognizant Classic. There were 78% of respondents who did not like the greener and softer condition at PGA National while 22% thought it was pretty on television.
NBC went to a minute long Rolex commercial (I didn’t even know they still had such a thing) and missed broadcasting, live, the key shot of the final round in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the chip-in for eagle by Russell Henley. Was this avoidable? Are you okay with watching the key shot of the final round on tape delay? Let us know what you think in this week’s Tour Backspin Poll.
We’re playing Players Championship trivia in this week’s Tour Backspin Quiz. Scroll down to take the challenge.
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Okay, we're on the tee, let's get going.
Enjoy!
Larry Baush
Driving Range Tip Helps Trevino Prevail In Star Studded Final Group
Lee Trevino is beating balls on the range at Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra, FL, on the Wednesday before the start of the 1980 Tournament Players Championship. While Trevino was hard at work, J.C. Snead, who owned a condominium in the Sawgrass complex, was riding his bike alongside his son and their ride took them right by the range at Sawgrass. Snead stopped his bike and watched Trevino hit balls. He saw something that wasn’t quite right.
“He told me I was too open,” Trevino later told reporters including Richard Mudry, sportswriter for The Tampa Times of Tampa, FL. “I moved my right foot back and you couldn’t ask for better results. He got me on the right track.”
Players came to the Tournament Players Championship fresh off the Doral Open where Raymond Floyd won in a playoff over Jack Nicklaus.
The Players was the only designated tournament of the year as the commissioner of the PGA TOUR, Deane Beman continued his quest to make the tournament a “fifth major” in men’s professional golf. Did the players themselves think it was a major tournament? Some did while others weren’t so sure.
“The Tournament Players Championship would be a great tournament to win,” Fuzzy Zoeller said to Mudry of The Tampa Times. “In my book, it is as important as any tournament we play, anywhere.”
Jack Nicklaus felt that only time would build the tournament, if anything would, into a major championship. The course, Sawgrass Country Club, certainly qualified as a major challenge as it measured 7,000 yards and played to a par of 72. It was surrounded by marshes and the Atlantic Ocean, and the wind frequently blew with gusts of up to 50 miles per hour being recorded in 1978 and 1979.
“I don’t think it has the stature of the Masters or the U.S. Open or the British Open or the PGA.”
Tom Watson stopped short of calling it a major tournament, but did make clear it was a tournament he wanted to win.
“It’s our showcase tournament, the showcase tournament on the tour,” he told reporters. “The championship of the tournament players. It’s an extremely well-run tournament. I’d very much like to win it. If we get the conditions we usually do—by that I mean wind—it’s a great test of golf.”
But was it a major?
“I don’t think it has the stature of the Masters or the U.S. Open or the British Open or the PGA,” the brutally honest Watson went on. “I don’t know if it ever will.”
The tournament featured the strongest field of the year that included, in addition to Nicklaus and Trevino, the leading money winner, Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, winner of the Jackie Gleason-Inverrary Classic two weeks prior to the Players, defending champion Lanny Wadkins, Gary Player, British Open champion Seve Ballesteros, Curtis Strange, Hale Irwin, and Hubert Green.
It was Hale Irwin, who was fighting to get out of an early season slum, who sat atop the leaderboard tied with Steve Melnyk at 67, five-under-par, after the first round.
“My game has gone through the worst start in 10 years,” Irwin informed Mudry of The Tampa Times. “Generally speaking, I did not play any competitive golf the latter part of the year. I wasn’t ready to play. I neglected my chipping and putting and now seems to be a good time to start an upward trend.”
Behind Irwin and Melnyk sat 10 players at 68 including Lee Trevino, Curtis Strange, and Peter Jacobsen. There were another 10 players who shot 69 including Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, veteran Gene Littler, Seve Ballesteros, and defending champion Lanny Wadkins.
Gary Player was in a group of players who came in with 70s. Those who played in the morning faced calmer conditions than those who had afternoon starting times. Those in the afternoon wave struggled facing stiff breezes. Irwin was in the afternoon wave, so it was quite impressive that he made six birdies offset by a lone bogey at his final hole.
“The fellows that played this morning got a helluva break,” Irwin said to Mudry. “When I came out to the course around noon, you had to be 4-under-par to get your name on the leaderboard. Today’s round was one of my better scores this year. If anybody had said that I would shoot 67, I’d have told them they were crazy.”
Trevino played in the morning wave and accumulated six birdies offset by two bogeys. But he was happy with his ball striking and credited the alignment tip he received from J.C. Snead.
“I hit the ball better today and thank goodness for J.C. Snead,” he declared after his round.
“It was scary out there.”
On Friday, the wind whipped to 30 miles per hour and affected the morning wave of players as well as the afternoon players. But the morning wave had to contend with rain, as well. A violent rainstorm interrupted play after about an hour and a half of play and the delay lasted about an hour. When play resumed, the wind, which had been nominal until then, became blustery.
Irwin was one of the first players to tee off and managed to navigate Sawgrass with a score of even-par 72, despite a penalty at the 5th hole. Curtis Strange, one of the last players to finish, birdied his final two holes and came in with a 71, tied with Irwin for the lead at 139.
“It was scary out there,” Irwin told Shelby Strother of Florida Today as he pointed to his hair which the wind had blown askew. “That’s not all wind, some of it is fright. Some of the holes were very unpredictable. The wind blew in all directions. It was very hard to get the ball near the hole.”
Strange acknowledged that he got a break from the wind on the final hole saying, “It died on my second shot. I hit the ball good, got it close, and sank the putt.”
Tom Watson, playing in the morning, started his day with three pars and a birdie. He added birdies on three of the next four holes and made the turn in 32. Bogeys on four of the last six holes had him settling for a one-under 71, one of the better rounds of the day, albeit an up-and-down day.
“Another fun day at Sawgrass, huh?” Watson said with a smile. “Obviously, the wind picked up. The course played very difficult, and I would expect scores to be four or five strokes higher today.”
Trevino came in with an even-par 72 for a two-round total of 140 and the final group on Saturday would consist of him, Watson, and Irwin. The field was cut to the low 70 scores for the weekend.
The script flipped on the wind conditions again on Saturday as predicted winds did not materialize, and players feasted on the more benign conditions. The cream of the field rose to the top as Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Hubert Green, and Tom Watson were packed within four strokes of each other on the leaderboard.
Trevino took the lead after a round of 68, including a birdie at the final hole, to post a three-day total of 208. His 68 was a great score, but it was only the third-best round of the day. Hubert Green tied the course record with a 66 and sat at 209, and Jay Haas fired a 67 and was four shots off the lead.
Player, saying he was playing the best golf of his career, carded a 69 for a total of 210, tied with Strange who held the lead all day until a bogey at the final hole that resulted in a round of 71. Jack Nicklaus had a 69 and was at 211, tied with three other players, who all shot third-round 69s: Peter Jacobsen, Don Pooley, and Seve Ballesteros.
Trevino got off to a fast start hitting his approach at the 1st hole to within an inch of the cup and added another birdie at the 2nd hole. He finished with birdie at the 18th hole and he reacted with a fist pump.
With the final round groupings being made according to scores, the final group would feature three of the biggest names in the game in Trevino, Nicklaus, and Player. This would be the first time the three played together in a final group on a Sunday and Dan Jenkins, in the March 31st edition of Sports Illustrated described the final group pairing as “a gift item in the Neiman-Marcus Christmas catalog.”
Asked about playing in the star-studded group Trevino shrugged and said, “I play the course, not other players. I think you’ve got the big names on top because it’s a tough course. One stroke’s not much of a lead but it’s still one better than nothing.”
Trevino may have been intent on playing the course, not the players, in the final round, but it was his playing to the large and boisterous crowd in the circus conditions that helped him prevail on Sunday. Trevino joked and played to the crowd with a flair while Nicklaus and Player exhibited steely-eyed determination trying their best to tune the crowd out.
Trevino held the lead all day but had to share it a few times on the front nine after he bogeyed the 2nd hole. Player birdied the two of the first three holes while Ballesteros birdied two of the first four holes and Green birdied one of the first four holes.
“Let’s take it on home, babe.”
By the time the final group made the turn, the tournament was red-hot with players making their runs at Trevino’s lead. There were six players tied for second place early in the back nine including Ben Crenshaw who was lighting up the course. The other five players were Nicklaus, Player, Watson, Green, and Ballesteros. The final round was nationally televised by CBS and the network was giddy over the chance of a sudden-death playoff between any of the seven players at the top of the leaderboard.
Player fell away from the battle after he hit his tee shot out of bounds on the 14th hole. A few holes later, Nicklaus began a string of three straight bogeys and fell out of contention. Trevino just kept being Trevino playing flawless golf. He birdied the 15th hole to go to three-under for the day and his closest pursuer at this point was Crenshaw who was on his way to a 66. Crenshaw’s hot round cooled off just a bit when he missed makable birdie putts on the 16th and 18th holes.
After the birdie at the 15th hole, Trevino’s caddie, Herman Mitchell said to his boss, “Let’s take it on home, babe.”
Trevino played the final two holes cautiously once Crenshaw reached the scorer’s tent. Making sure to avoid the water to the left of 17, he hit his drive so far right that he could not reach the green and made a bogey.
“I bailed out on my driver,” Trevino later said even though he hit 41 of 56 fairways for the week. “I wasn’t sure it was ready to forgive me right away, so I went with a 1-iron off the 18th tee. You don’t bail out on your honey, but it was time to win a golf tournament.”
Lee Trevino was back in the winner’s circle winning in a pressure-packed final round and all it took was J.C. Snead taking a break from a bike ride past the practice tee to give him an alignment adjustment. It was a tip that paid off for Trevino quite handsomely.
Coming Next Week: Glamour pair of Fred Couples and Jan Stephenson run away with the JCPenny Mixed Team Classic in 1983
BONUS STORY
Television was looking for a way to bring fans in closer to what players were thinking about and conversations between them, their caddies, and their fellow players in 1980. They wanted players to wear microphones during their rounds, a precursor to today’s “walk and talk” interviews during broadcasts.
Deane Beman, commissioner of the PGA Tournament Players Division, acknowledged that talks were in progress with CBS and NBC to use wireless microphones on players during live broadcasts.
“I’ve got enough fiddling around to do with my clothes as it is while I’m playing.”
“Both have requested, and they’ve convinced me,” Beman told reporters the week of the Tournament Players Championship. “We’ll try the next four tournaments and see how it goes. The producers will decide who they would like to have wired, but the final approval must come from the player and from members of the group he is playing with.”
Not all players were on board with this idea, including Jack Nicklaus who said he would not wear a mic.
“I was asked to wear a microphone while playing golf and I said no,” Nicklaus informed reporters. “I’ve got enough fiddling around to do with my clothes as it is while I’m playing. I’m playing a golf tournament, not a TV show.”
In the end, the idea died due to the lack of player buy-in.
Larry,
Great interview with Bruce Devlin. He’s still doing well. I did a clinic in Dallas last year with Randy Smith and Bruce played in the tournament afterwards. I was able to have a really nice conversation with him.
Jim
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WHAT HOLE IS IT?
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We told you about getting our hands on a treasure trove of film that we are cleaning up and digitizing for the Tony Lema documentary. Some great footage of Tony in action and even home movies. Below is home movie footage of Tony’s wedding to the former Betty Cline. Helping them into the car is Tony’s sponsor, Jim Malarky. This is one of the few images of Malarky I’ve ever found. (clicking on link will open this post on the web, scroll down to video player).
Click on image to view on the web.
You can now support the induction of Tony Lema into the World Golf Hall of Fame. Sign the online petition HERE.
Clips I Loved
In case you missed it.
Neal Shipley is a star of this season of “Full Swing.” Here’s a story that got left on the cutting room floor.
It’s all about family.
Well said.
From this . . . .
To this . . . .
Nice digs.
PGA TOUR Wrap-Up | Arnold Palmer Invitational
What a wild finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Russell Henley chipped in for an eagle at the 16th hole, while NBC was away from the action for a one minute Rolex commercial, to take the lead away from Collin Morikawa.
Henley’s round included two bogeys on the two front nine par 5 holes in addition to the chip-in eagle. His 70 was good enough to pip Morikawa by one stroke. The win moved Henley from No. 14 on the Official World Golf Rankings to No. 7, a career high.
Read more from the PGA TOUR HERE.
Here are the highlights of the final round:
Tour Backspin Quiz | Players Championship Trivia
How many players have won a Players Championship and a major championship in the same year? Who were they, and what major did they also win?
Scroll down for answer
Play Like a Pro
Lee Trevino talks about putting spin on a wedge shot.
Blind Shot
Click for something fun. 👀
They relocated a 500,000 pound tree at TPC Sawgrass. Watch them do it, and see why.
Adam Schupak has another great article about PGA TOUR pros meeting Arnold Palmer for the first time.
Tour Backspin Music Clip
So sad that we were robbed of this tour. John Lennon rehearses “Just Like Starting Over” live.
Tour Backspin Quiz Answer:
Six. Jack Nicklaus (1978, Open Championship), Hal Sutton (1983, PGA Championship), Tiger Woods (2001, Masters), Martin Kaymer (2014, U.S. Open), Cameron Smith (2022, Open Championship), and Scottie Scheffler (2024, Masters)
Thank you for reading this far, I know your time is valuable and choosing to spend some of it on what I’ve created is gratifying. If you want to help support the work we’re doing, please consider upgrading. It’s just $36 a year and you’ll be helping to tell the stories from one of golf’s golden ages.
Vintage Ad
Final Thoughts
I wrote and composed this week’s Tour Backspin while on the road. I’m in Oakland working on the Tony Lema documentary and I’m really proud of the progress we are making. When you publish a weekly Substack you sometimes find yourself writing in airports, hotels, or anywhere you can plug in.
That tree moving video in incredible, be sure to check it out.
The crowds that followed that final group in the final round in our feature story must have been crazy. It must have been a mob.
Do you think Jack Nicklaus would have agreed to be mic’d up for that photo shoot in this week’s Vintage Ad?