Only One Green Is Any Good : Hubie’s Wedge Gives Him PGA Title When Trevino’s Putter Fails

Last Thursday, around noon, Hubert Green left the driving range and his preparations for the first round of the PGA to watch Arnold Palmer hit a driver off the first tee at Cherry Hills.

“I had to see that, it was history,” said Green, who was a promising 13-year-old junior golfer in Alabama when Palmer drove the green on the same 345-yard hole in 1960 to start a charge that won the U. S. Open. “Arnie was my idol then, and I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”

Green made history himself Sunday when he won a shoot-out with defending PGA champion Lee Trevino over the same Cherry Hills course to capture the 67th PGA Championship. It was Green’s second major golf championship. He also won the 1977 U.S. Open at Southern Hills in Tulsa.

Green shot a one-over-par 72, which was good enough to win by two strokes when Trevino stumbled to a 39 on the final nine holes and a 71 total. Green finished with a six-under-par 278 that earned him $125,000. Trevino, with 280, won $75,000.

Tze Ming Chen of Taiwan, whose brother T.C. almost won the U.S. Open last June, birdied five of the final six holes for a 65-281 and a share of third place with Andy Bean, who had a 68. T.C., younger of the brothers by six years, had a 66 Sunday.

The final round on a brooding day that went from sunny to cloudy to rainy wasn’t match play, but it might as well have been. But for a brief period when Nick Price of South Africa moved to within a shot of the lead with three early birdies, that’s what it amounted to. Price quietly slipped away with three bogeys, but his 71-282 was good for fifth place.

“I felt it was just me and Lee from the ninth hole on,” said Green, who started the day three shots in front, only to lose the lead when Trevino eagled the fifth hole. Trevino uncharacteristically three-putted on four greens. Two bogeys in the final four holes cost him any chance of repeating his success of last year at Shoal Creek in Birmingham, Ala.

“I won with my putter last year but it let me down today,” Trevino said. “The lights went out on 15 when I took three putts from 12 feet.”

Green and Trevino either exchanged or tied for the lead seven times before Trevino fell back to stay on the 15th hole. Green won by finishing with eight straight pars while Trevino was making two bogeys and no birdies.

The two veteran warriors--Trevino is 45, Green 38--disagreed on the turning point of the match. Both, however, agreed that it was Trevino’s putting that did him in.

Trevino: “I thought the turning point was No. 11, where Hubert made a bogey and I was putting for an eagle. Even if I took two putts for a birdie I would pick up two shots and get the lead, but I took three putts and let him off the hook.”

Green: “When he three-putted 15 was the turning point because it dropped him a shot behind and he had to start taking chances before we ran out of holes.”

Both were highly critical, as most players had been Saturday, of the extremely hard greens.

“Some of those greens were like asphalt highways,” said Green, who admitted he lost his temper when a “perfect 8-iron shot” bounced over the green on the seventh hole. Even after he chipped in from 35 feet for a birdie, Green stomped off the green and started talking to himself.

“I was furious, I lost my composure, but I couldn’t believe what was happening. I was hitting solid golf shots, just the way I wanted, and because the greens were tricked up, I never knew what to expect. One green would be like a brick and the next one would be soft.

“It’s not fun to have someone laugh at you when you hit a good golf shot. I don’t mind if they laugh when I hit a bad one, but I was hitting good shots and getting bad results. I started talking to anything in my way, the trees, the gallery, the grass, anything in the sound of my voice. I just stomped around the woods trying to calm myself.”

Trevino, who blistered the greenskeeper for not watering the greens before Saturday’s round, was just as critical on Sunday.

“I’ll bet he loses that 11th green. There’s not a blade of grass on it. It reminds me of my course in El Paso where we had sand greens.

“The greens were so hard and so fast that I got defensive with my putter. I use an extremely heavy putter, and it isn’t suited for fast greens. I didn’t have any three-putt greens the first two days when the greens were closer to normal. Today, I never felt like I knew what kind of a stroke to put on the ball.”

If Trevino’s putter lost it for him, Green’s wedge play won it for him.

In addition to the wedge shot he holed out for a birdie on the seventh hole, Green saved pars by hitting approach shots close with his sand wedge on the 13th, 14th and 18th holes.

“If there’s anything Hubert can do, it’s handle that wedge,” Trevino said. “I’d rather see him on the green, 40 feet away, than have him chipping with that wedge in his hand. He’s about the best bunker player out here. He’s never more than a couple of feet away.”

On the final hole, a 491-yard uphill par-4, Green put his second shot in a bunker protecting the green. Rain began to pour down and lightning lit up the Rockies as he sized up his shot. Trevino was on the green and if Green flubbed his bunker shot, the possibility of a tie still existed.

With rain dripping off his head, Green bent over the ball and swung crisply through the sand. The ball popped up, hit the green and rolled straight to the flagstick. It didn’t fall, but it stopped inches away and that ended Trevino’s faint hope of winning.

“My chipping was very good, especially coming down the stretch when every shot seemed to count double,” Green said. “On the other hand, I was scared of every putt I stood over. Even a little one-footer made me nervous.”

Not the last one, though.

“I knew I couldn’t take more than two putts from a foot away,” he said, laughing nervously.

Too many wedges may have cost Trevino. In planning his strategy for Sunday’s 18 holes, he replaced his 9-iron with a third wedge.

“When I hit through the fairway on the fourth hole and was in the rough, I really needed the 9-iron,” Trevino said. “I tried to hit a pitching wedge as hard as I could and ended up on the back edge of the green.”

Trevino took three putts from that spot for his first bogey.

He came back on the next hole, a 543-yard par-5, to make an eagle when he put his 4-iron second shot 15 feet from the pin and holed the putt.

No sooner had he taken the lead than he gave it back on No. 6 when he again needed three putts.

During the next stretch of three holes, 7-8-9, Green and Trevino had matching 3s, each making two birdies and a par.

“That’s what it’s all about,” said Green. “Lee hit one stiff on the ninth hole and I came right back and hit one nearly as close.”

When Green’s shot hit the green and settled down near the pin, Trevino applauded and Green waved back in acknowledgement.

Green’s win was only the second time he has finished in the top ten in 21 starts. He was third in the Bob Hope Classic behind Lanny Wadkins and Craig Stadler in the year’s first tournament.

Although Green said he couldn’t compare his PGA win with his U.S. Open in ‘77, he felt he would savor this one more.

“In 1977, I was at the top of my game. I had won four tournaments the year before and had been among the leading money winners for three or four years and it was more or less expected that I would win a major championship,” he said.

“This time, I came back after being down. I died a couple of years ago (as far as his golf game was concerned). I came back when not many people, except my wife and Fuzzy Zoeller, my best friend, expected me to. It’s nice being on top again and having friends stop me in the locker room and say, ‘Nice game, Hubert.’ ”

The spectators following T.M. Chen on the back nine were witness to a remarkable putting streak. On the last four holes, he sank putts of 15-, 20- and 45-feet for birdies, and closed out with a 25-footer for par.

This was only T.M.’s second tournament in the U.S., but he will now join his brother on tour because his third-place winnings of $42,500 earned him a player’s card.

For the Jack Nicklaus Fan Club, the five-time champion, after starting with a 66, closed out 75-74-74 for 389 and a tie for 32nd place. At that, it was better than he did in the U. S. Open and the British Open, where he missed the cut both times.