Lee Trevino: Peak Years, Major Wins, and His Place in Golf History

Lee Trevino’s story doesn’t read like a country-club fairy tale.

It reads like a hustle: humble roots in Dallas, a stint in the U.S. Marines, money matches, and a self-made climb into the sport’s toughest arenas.

Then he arrived on major-championship leaderboards and started doing the one thing that instantly defines your place in golf history: he beat Jack Nicklaus, repeatedly, on the biggest stages.

Lee Trevino: The peak, the legend and why his voice still echoes in golf

Lee Trevino’s peak: when he became Nicklaus’ most dangerous rival

Trevino’s prime is most cleanly framed from 1968 through the early 1970s, when his game (and confidence) hardened into championship steel. In 1968, he won the U.S. Open at Oak Hill—four strokes clear of Nicklaus—and made history by breaking 70 in all four rounds.

The peak hit full force in the summer of 1971, when Trevino pulled off one of the sport’s great heater stretches: he beat Nicklaus in an 18-hole playoff to win the U.S. Open at Merion, then followed it up by winning the Canadian Open and The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale in the same year—an achievement often treated as a “triple crown” run of golf’s oldest national opens.

And it wasn’t a one-season wonder. He defended his Open title in 1972 at Muirfield, then added the PGA Championship in 1974, and—proving his greatness wasn’t tied to one era—won a final major in 1984 at the PGA Championship, long after most contemporaries had faded.

The shot that defined him: a controlled fade and fearless ball-striking

Trevino’s identity is built on reliability under pressure. He was famously talkative and playful—“always chatting and joking,” as The Open’s profile puts it—yet his golf was surgical when it mattered.

The signature technical storyline: Trevino found consistency by leaning into a fade, not fighting it. That’s where one of his most famous lines comes from: “You can talk to a fade but a hook won’t listen.”

That single quote captures why he traveled so well across tough setups and windy conditions: he trusted a shot shape that tends to hold up when adrenaline spikes. Pair that with an elite touch around the greens, and you get a player built to survive major-championship stress—especially when the margin between legend and runner-up is one swing.

Where Trevino belongs in golf history

Start with the resume anchors: six major championships and 29 PGA Tour wins, plus a Hall of Fame induction in 1981. That’s an all-time profile—full stop.

But the more meaningful separator is who he had to beat and when. Trevino’s prime overlapped with Nicklaus’ prime, and Trevino didn’t just hang around—he won majors with Nicklaus chasing, including multiple times where Nicklaus finished second to him in majors. In “greatest of all time” conversations, that matters: it’s proof of ceiling, not just longevity.

He also has a rare “what if” on the trophy shelf: The Masters was the only major he never won. If he had a green jacket, the argument for Trevino as a near-consensus top-10 all-timer gets even louder. Even without it, his combination of major count, rivalry-era wins, and stylistic influence places him comfortably among the game’s most important champions—often cited in the same historical tier right behind the very top names.

The cultural impact that still lands today

Trevino didn’t just win—he changed who felt like they could belong in golf. He’s widely viewed as an icon for Mexican Americans, and his public persona—humor, approachability, and a refusal to act “proper” for the galleries—helped stretch golf’s image beyond polish and privilege.

That impact still shows up in the modern game’s personality era. In a sport that can drift toward stiffness, Trevino is the reminder that greatness doesn’t require silence. His one-liners remain part of golf’s everyday language, his “street-smart” feel is still referenced whenever a player wins without looking like the textbook prototype, and his life story remains one of the sport’s clearest examples of elite performance built from scratch—not inherited access.

In short: Trevino’s peak was real, his place in history is secure, and his cultural imprint is lasting—because he proved golf has room for champions who don’t come from golf.