Tired of Sports Cliches

Last night on GC, I caught a little of their special on Lee Trevino.  Naturally, they had to have another Mexican-American gush about him.  So Esteban Toledo, a fringe tour player from the '90's (who's a good story himself, being a former boxer) says of Trevino:

"he played for the love of the game." 

I'm sorry, No.  Like everybody else, Trevino played for the money.  Which is perfectly fine, and needs no apology.  Why must we pretend that somebody has a more noble motive  for golf than making a comfortable living while escaping the drudgery of office work or giving lessons to ladies?  It's ridiculous.  It's as if nobody can think straight anymore.  And the media people seem to love this stuff.  How much better it would have been if Toledo could have said, "he got rich doing something he loved, and entertained people at the same time, and that's why America is so great"?  Jeez.

I remember reading about Toledo years ago and how he got beaten so bad in a bout somewhere in Mexico that he almost died. Then he turned to golf. I thought it was a very touching story and always routed for him when he managed to qualify for a mini-tour event. Then just a few weeks ago, here he is on TV playing some senior tour event and looking all prosperous and the like and in contention. I forget if he won or not but in an interview after the round I was watching, he copped a real big attitude about how the Mexicans were and are discriminated against and intimated that he would have had a much better career if he had been a gringo. To which my immediate response was, "Hie thee south of the border immediatement, beaner.

As for Trevino, I've always been a fan and have been in a couple of galleries to watch him play up close and personal. Not only did he play for the money, he played to beat your ass since he's got a real competitive mean streak about him. I liked him so much that in the mid-1990's, I bought a Lee Trevino model TopFlite Heat driver. Won a long drive contest with that one, too. In a business scramble with a bunch of bankers and lawyers, neither of which I was (just a humble real estate liquidator). My tee ball on that long drive hole ended up 280 yards from the tee in the center of the fairway. Now the wealthy yup lawyer whose tee shot was a yard behind me had the most expensive brand new Biggest Great Big Bertha that was at least $500 at the time. His tee shot was all carry since we were into a stiff breeze on that hole. Now thinking like Trevino, I scoped out the terrain on the tee and realized that there was no way I could carry my drive more than around 230-240 and the fairways weren't rolling much that day. But I did notice this knoll in the rough off the right side of the fairway about 225 out so I aimed at that hillock in the rough and the ball flew on a long line drive trajectory landing at an extremely obtuse angle right on top and bounded forward another 55 yards and towards the left nestling down real nice right in front of the sign on a stick where you write your name on. Thanks, Lee.

I read a story about Lee Trevino who had a nice home in an expensive development (Dallas?). One day while mowing his lawn, one stranger drove by and asked him how much he get paid, Lee smiled and said, "free sex from lady of the house" ... that's Lee