Lee Trevino’s golf interest was waning. Then came Ben Hogan

In the 67 years since their publication, the lessons in “Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf” they have not changed.

But the writings about them have.

A new edition of the landmark book has just been published (publisher Avid Reader Press is hailing it as the “definitive edition”), featuring never-before-seen photos and memorabilia from the archives of the Hogan estate.

There is also a new entry from Lee Trevino.

As personalities, Trevino gallant and stoic Hogan it could hardly be more different. But they shared defining traits as scrappy Texans who got into golf through cadence and taught themselves to play by digging answers out of the dirt. And this is not where the connections between them end.

Another connection is the debt Trevino says he owes Hogan for helping set him on the path to success long before the two ever met.

It’s a story that Trevino recounts in his introduction, starting the narrative in December 1957. At the time, the 17-year-old Trevino was already showing promise in the game, but he was also restless and unfair. “I was feeling lost and started getting into trouble,” he writes. Seeking structure, he put down his clubs and joined the Marines, leaving behind his dollar-an-hour job for a 13-week stint at Camp Pendleton in Southern California. After that, he left for Yokohama.

As Trevino boarded a troop ship for what would be a 22-day voyage from San Diego to Japan, “golf,” he writes, “was the furthest thing from his mind.” However, that changed when he entered the ship’s library and came across a copy of the March 11, 1957 issue of Sports Illustratedwhich contained the first part of a five-part teaching series by a famous Texan.

At the time, Trevino knew the name, but little more about Hogan. But the bootcamp, he writes, “gave me a crash course in structure and discipline for the first time in my life.” A few pages into the article, Trevino felt he had found a kindred spirit and felt “the golf bug stirring again.”

The rest is history, with colorful side notes. Trevino would join the Marine Corps golf team, playing in his first tournaments and winning his first individual titles. A star was born.

After his discharge from the Army, Trevino returned to Dallas with renewed fire and focus. When he wasn’t on the range or playing cash games, he would light up just for the course and play two balls, imagining one of them to be Hogan’s. In time, he would cross paths with the man himself.

Trevino relays the oft-repeated story of going to play a round at Shady Oaks Country Club, Hogan’s home course, and seeing Hogan on the range, hitting balls toward a caddy who barely had to move to retrieve shots. Watching from a distance, Trevino says he noticed how Hogan “controlled his shots with his lower body. And the more he steered with his hips and legs, the more he would fade the shot from left to right.” In those days, Trevino played a draw that often betrayed him under pressure. Hogan’s method of producing a fade became another fundamental lesson. “What I’m saying,” Trevino writes, “is that Hogan is the reason I developed my game.” His gratitude was so great that after winning his first major, the 1968 US Open, he dedicated his guidebook to Hogan.

The two became members of a mutual admiration club. Although their starts did not match, they were paired together in the final round of the 1970 Houston Champions Invitational, when Hogan was 56 years old. They finished back-to-back in a tie for 9th. Hogan, for his part, made a special effort to watch Trevino play every time the Colonial Invitational rolled around. According to Trevino, whenever Hogan was getting ready to release a new line of his name-brand clubs, he would give one of his representatives the following instructions: “Take this band to Dallas and let the little Mexican boy t hit them. He will tell me if they are strong.”

“And I had no problem with that,” Trevino says.

In closing, Trevino shares one last gem of truth he got from Hogan. “Whether you are exercising or playing, train yourself to think of the cause and not of the result.” Trevino caught this. “I called myself an uneducated engineer who could solve a problem, find the reason and fix it,” he writes.

But the process never ends. Even in his twilight, Hogan remained a rat. Like the man he learned so much from, Trevino is the same.

As he says: “I’m still trying to figure it out at eighty-five.”