FORTY-TWO YEARS later, and I can still remember the clubs I used that week. I had a Hogan Special sand wedge, the kind with green paintfill in the Hogan signature. It was the best sand wedge anyone ever made. I used a Wilson 8802 putter, one of many I had during my career. My driver was a gorgeous PowerBilt persimmon model; I didn't miss fairways with it. I carried a 2-wood that week, a MacGregor Eye-O-Matic with a metallic-looking insert about the size of a dime. And I had a Tommy Armour 4-wood.
THE SET OF IRONS I used at Merion, best I ever had. When I went to Australia in 1969, David Graham, who won the Open at Merion 10 years after I did, told me about a great clubmaker, a man named Sandy. I found Sandy sitting in his workshop, smoking a cigarette, surrounded by barrels of iron clubheads and discouraged beyond words. "My work has been reduced to rubbish!" he said, gesturing toward the barrels. "I'm a craftsman. I've spent my life making these clubheads by hand, and nobody sees value in them. They're forging clubheads by the hundreds now, and these fine clubheads I've made--they're seen as rubbish."
I wasn't so sure about that. I took a bare shaft and went into the barrels looking for the best clubheads. I'd stick the shaft into one, set it on the ground, and choose or reject it based on the grind. Eventually I had a whole set. This was on a Monday. I asked Sandy if he could install the shafts I liked and leather grips by Wednesday, which he did. I proceeded to shoot 16 under in a tournament there, lost in a playoff. These irons were unbelievable. I won the U.S. Open at Merion, my British Opens and my PGAs with them. One day, during a streak when I wasn't playing well, I drilled holes in them to take some weight out--and ruined them. I still have them, and when I look at them I could cry. If I hadn't tried to fix them, they might be in my bag to this day.

— Lee Trevino, Golf Digest, “My shot: Lee Trevino” April 22, 2013, Guy Yocom [link]