TAKING NOTES:

Comedian George Lopez sees golf as a metaphor for his life.

“It rewired my system,“ he told me Thursday as we walked up to the 9th tee at Newport Beach Country Club. “When I was growing up I was dishonest and tried to do things the easy way.”

Golf, he told me, is not like that. Golf has made him do things the right way, he said. He doesn’t try to cut corners. He doesn’t give up so easily.

“Golf allows me to make my mistakes on the golf course.”

It’s that love affair with the game of golf that brought him to Newport Beach to play in the Toshiba Classic Thursday Pro/Am with his good friend Lee Trevino.

“Lee was my idol when I was a kid,” said Lopez, who has had a close friendship with the legendary golfer for the last five years.

Trevino has become like a family member to Lopez, who said he doesn’t have the best relations with his biological family.

He walked up to the tee and blasted a nice-looking shot on the par 4 hole that faded right a little into the trees.

We started walking toward his ball, and he told me more about why golf is such a part of him.

“Some of my best friendships I have are with guys I’ve met on the golf course,” said Lopez who plays often at Lakeside Golf Club in Toluca Lake.

Golf keeps him whole, and it’s the reason that his wife will let him get up at 5 in the morning to drive to Newport Beach for a tournament.

“This is good for me,” he said. “It’s less about the score and more about being on the course.”

And true to his comedic timing (and genius), he walked over to his ball and hit a shot that should’ve sailed through the trees toward the hole, but it hit a branch and bounced off to the right.

But the bad shot hardly fazed him as he walked up to his ball, centered his shot, and hit a perfect pitch onto the green from about 140 yards out.

That was the end of the serious side of Lopez.

So what do you think of Newport Beach Country Club, I asked?

“Twenty years ago, I came here with Efren Herrera [the Dallas Cowboys kicker],” he said. “I was standing out front, and they asked me to park the cars.”

Then more one-liners started flying.

When one of the golfers in his foursome hit a birdie on the 9th, he shouted.

“Where’s my trophy?”

The hole was done, but Trevino was still lining up his putt.

“Pick it up, Lee,” he shouted. “They don’t need us, Lee. We’re just a couple of Mexicans holding them back.”

And when Trevino jotted down the score, that brought more self-effacing jokes about fudging the score.

“Your best wood is your pencil, Lee,” he quipped.

It’s no wonder that even with all the heavyweight golfers out there, the biggest galleries Thursday were following Lopez and Trevino.

Lopez is good for the game, and it was good for the Toshiba Classic to have him here.

While I was waiting for Lopez to come to the 9th green, perennial professional Loren Roberts strolled by with his group.

For some reason, I glanced to the pairings program to see who was playing with Roberts, and a named jumped out at me: C. McNown.

Being the huge UCLA Bruin fan that I am (sorry, Paul Salata), I went racing over to the tee to see if it was indeed Cade McNown, the quarterback legend who had the team on the verge of a national championship nearly 10 years ago.

Turns out it was. So I got to shake his hand and add yet another highlight for me this Toshiba week.

Speaking of Salata, he called me Thursday to compliment me on the story I did on longtime volunteer Shirley Pobe. He pointed out that there were many people involved in those early days of the so-called Little Crosby tournament, the precursor to the Toshiba.

He pointed out that it was the Little Crosby organizers, like the Hoag 552 Club, who went to Palm Springs to get then President Gerald Ford involved.

Salata wanted to give me more information, but he is busy getting ready for the upcoming NFL draft in April and the choosing of this year’s Mr. Irrelevant, the last player picked in the draft.

TONY DODERO may be reached at tony.dodero@latimes.com or at (714) 966-4608.