THE MEX FACTOR
he 1974 USPGA Championship was held at Tanglewood Park in North Carolina. Lee Trevino was 34 years old and he was vying with Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Johnny Miller to be the world’s best golfer. Trevino had won four Majors by now – a pair of US Opens and a pair of Claret Jugs – but in August 1974 he was lost in the darkness of a putting slump.
“Listen, let me explain something to you about putters, okay?” he says. “Kittens are born blind. A lot of people don’t know that. When kittens are born they can’t see for a week and their mother takes care of them and feeds them. Putters are the same way. A new putter is blind. You can go in the pro shop and there will be 20 putters. You take two of them out to the putting green, you pick one and with that putter you make every putt in the world.
“So you buy that putter but after seven days it opens its eyes, it sees you putt and from that moment you putt just as bad with that putter as with your old ones.
“Back in 1974, I was looking for a blind putter. If I could find that blind putter then I just hoped I could get the tournament over with before it opened its eyes and recognised me. That is exactly what I did that week and
