Texan Lee Trevino won the 56th PGA Championship in 1974 at Tanglewood Park in Clemmons, N.C., a suburb southwest of Winston-Salem, N.C. It was the first of his two PGA Championships, one stroke ahead of defending champion Jack Nicklaus. Photo courtesy of Golfhistory.com

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth of a four-part series featuring former winners of the Tanos Exploration II/Patterson-UTI Drilling Texas State Open to be played at The Cascades Golf & Country Club on July 31 through Aug. 3 in Tyler. Lee Trevino will conduct a free clinic at The Cascades at 1 p.m. Sunday. The tournament is also free.

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When the greatest golfers of all time are discussed, Lee Buck Trevino should always be included in the conversation.

Only 12 players have won more major championships than Trevino, a native Texan born in Garland and reared in Dallas. A product of humble surroundings, Trevino first picked up a golf club as a kid when caddying at the old Dallas Athletic Club course off Central Expressway and Walnut Hill. He soon learned he could make more money playing than caddying and it is doubtful any golfer overcame more to reach the pinnacle of a sport still thought to be a “rich man’s game.”

Now 78, Trevino will host a free clinic for the Tanos Exploration II/Patterson-UTI Drilling Texas State Open at 1 p.m. Sunday at The Cascades Golf & Country Club. He is a former back-to-back winner of the tournament in 1965-66 at the Sharpstown Golf Club in Houston.

Trevino’s six major golf titles included two each of the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship. His first major win was the 1968 U.S. Open at Oak Hill in Rochester, New York, and his last one the PGA Championship in 1984 at Shoal Creek near Birmingham, Alabama. Between those two were 27 wins on the PGA Tour and at one time in 1971, Trevino was the reigning U.S., British and Canadian Open champion.

“I can take you over to where he grew up in a tiny little house near the old Glen Lakes golf course,” 88-year-old former PGA Champion Don January said. “He should be very proud of what he accomplished in golf because he earned every bit of it.”

January has been called the best storyteller in golf by Johnny Miller.

“The first time I saw him was in 1966, before he was Lee Trevino,” January said with a wink. “We both qualified for the U.S. Open out at Great Southwest Golf Club in Grand Prairie.”

That was the year Arnold Palmer collapsed and Billy Casper won at Olympic Club in San Francisco. It was also the year another Dallas area pro, Rives McBee, shot a 64 to tie the record for lowest round in a U.S. Open. McBee also had qualified at Great Southwest.

“The first person I saw in the locker room after that round was Lee Trevino sitting on a Coke box with his friend and caddie Arnold Salinas,” McBee said. “Lee hollered out at me, ‘Where did you cut over.’”

McBee laughed at the comment because Trevino was insinuating that the only way to shoot a 64 at Olympic Club during a U.S. Open was to skip a hole or two. But two years later, wearing a red shirt with black slacks and red socks, Trevino gained national prominence with his U.S. Open win. He joined Jack Nicklaus in a rare category of great players winning the U.S. Open for their first PGA Tour win.

Speaking of Nicklaus, Trevino was always a thorn in his flesh. Four of Trevino’s six majors saw Nicklaus finish second. The only blemish on Trevino’s record was a lack of success at The Masters held each April in Augusta, Georgia. Learning to play in the windy conditions of North Texas, Trevino hit the ball low with a fade, which was not a good ball flight to attack the hilly Augusta National course.

Stories of Trevino’s rise to prominence abound, but few mention the Texas State Open wins early in his career. He graduated from caddying to working at Hardy’s Driving Range off Greenville Avenue not far from his childhood home. His golf developed and showed promise while he served in the Marines during the early 1960s. Trevino’s first win as a pro came at the Texas State Open in 1965.

The winner of the first Texas State Open in 1960, Homero Blancas of Houston, said Trevino was hard to beat when he got the lead.

“He was a like a bulldog when he got the lead,” Blancas said. “You may end up beating him but he wasn’t going to give you anything.”

Backing up Blancas’ assessment are the numbers — five times a Vardon Trophy winner for lowest stroke average on tour and in an elite group of seven golfers to have won both the U.S. Open and the U.S. Senior Open (Trevino, Hale Irwin, Arnold Palmer, Billy Casper, Gary Player, Orville Moody and Jack Nicklaus). Closer to home, he won the Colonial twice, once with rounds of 66-68-68-66.

Blancas went on to describe Trevino as outgoing, confident and funny.

“He was always fun to be around,” Blancas said of his 1973 Ryder Cup teammate. “He has a quick wit and a great sense of humor.”

In 1985, Trevino was between tours and doing color commentary for NBC. He boarded a flight from Orlando, Florida, to Dallas and told everyone seated in the first class section that they had two options.

“You can talk or you can listen,” he said.

The people on board all cracked up and Trevino talked nonstop the entire two-hour flight.

Of this comedic personality, Trevino once said, “I played the tour in 1967 and told jokes but nobody laughed. Then I won the U.S. Open the next year, told the same jokes, and everybody laughed like crazy.”

Trevino’s youngest son, Daniel, is in the field for the 48th version of the Texas State Open and has partnered with his dad in recent years at the Father/Son PGA Tour event held each December in Florida.

A couple of years ago, Tyler golfer George Rowe had a chance to visit with Trevino and get a lesson while on vacation at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia.

“My wife Linda set up the lesson for us and we had his full attention for about an hour,” Rowe said. “It was a beautiful day at a gorgeous resort and he had us on a tee about 120 yards from the green. We started out with me hitting some short shots and he was giving me advice on acceleration and tempo.

“Then he would hit some shots that all danced around the hole. He did all of this while speaking to us about his family. He spoke of his son and how proud he was of him and we shared a memory of when my daughter and his attended a camp together.”

Rowe said their time with Trevino was unforgettable.

“He is such a fun and loving person who has given so much to a game we all treasure.”