JACKIE BURKE JR.
AS HE TURNS 95, LOCAL ICON JACKIE BURKE JR. STILL FINDS TIME FOR LESSONS ON GOLF AND LIFE
As the golf icon turns 95, he still has time to teach the game.
No matter how many times you walk into the office and settle into the well-worn leather chair beside his desk, you’re always struck by the fact that the room you’re sitting in is filled with golf history. And the man sitting beside you is a national treasure. And, no. It never gets old. The clubs propped up against the wall behind you were made by his father, the man who brought the game from up east to Houston and Texas. The photos on the walls span decades and take you back to a time when winning five tournaments in a year was good for, say, $10,000 in purses.
There’s a leather-bound book he has filled with a lifetime of notes. Reminders of the dream he and partner Jimmy Demaret had for a golfonly club dot the room, along with of photos of their Champions
Golf Club today, 60 years later.
And when Jackie Burke, Jr., starts talking, you just listen.
There’s no interviewing him. You just have a conversation.
You are always struck by those expressive blue eyes as you listen to the stories. And you always know a lesson is coming. Maybe two.
It could be a parable or it might be something as simple as what it feels like to put a child in a swing and let go. It could come with a playful threat or a stern word or two.
It’s honest and to the point. Just like Burke.
Burke turns 95 on Monday and one of the game’s all-time greats is still working, albeit, just part time. After attending the club’s annual meeting Wednesday morning, he shuffled into his office at Champions and sat for a spell. He talked about a lot of things, including growing older.
A decade ago, he was giving lessons. Today, he mentors the teachers. He doesn’t play any longer, either, but does practice a few times a week. And, while he has slowed down and turned a lot of business of the club to his wife Robin and her Champions team, he’s fitter than most his age — weighing not that much less than his playing weight of 165.
So what’s on his mind just days before his birthday?
“When you get older, you need to be in the condition of a 35-year-old,’’ he said. “You need to be in better condition when you’re old than you ever had to be when you were young.’’
He has learned you eat less when you’re older and that it’s not a bad thing to put those clubs down.
“I played so much,’’ he said. “Now there’s no sense in playing without a reason, I wasn’t raised that way. Golf’s a great game and you enjoy playing it, but you don’t have play it just to get a score.’’
He may have softened just a tad, but, as I’ve said before, he’s still that gruff uncle with a heart of gold who isn’t afraid to get in your face and tell you what you need to hear. Even if
you don’t always understand it.
Keeping it simple
Burke has always kept things simple. In a game where today’s best seem to lean on technology, Burke remains old school, using his keen powers of observation and lessons that weave golf, wisdom and life together in one neat package.
Take noted teacher Jim McLean. He came to Burke one year worried and tense about his game.
“I told him to go to Gulf of Mexico, tee it up and hit it in the ocean,’’ Burke said. “He came back and asked what was that all about. I told him I was just hoping it wasn’t going to wind up being in the Atlantic Ocean.’’
And, yes, McLean got it. He let go and just started swinging. Burke learned the game and how to teach it from his father Jack Burke, Sr., who started as a club maker. He would give lessons on how hit his clubs and, after moving to Houston River Oaks Country Club, he eventually got so busy he turned the club making over to Demaret.
Burke sat on golf bags listening to his father and today he’ll tell you there are four teaching points in a golf swing — tension, timing, tempo and trust.
“You trust it when you go to the first tee,’’ he said. “There’s a swing in everybody and the instructor has to get it out of them. Just like throwing a rock. You pick it up and throw it and your body functions for that. So you build a swing around something your body can function with so you don’t have to think about it.
“You cannot think in pieces. A swing is like going to the park where you put your daughter in the swing but you have let her go. Every parent knows that’s pretty exciting to let her go and that’s what a golf swing is like. It’s a reckless feeling, but you have to let go of that. You can’t bring tension into it.’’
Burke has always been a teacher, but he and Demaret forged a lifelong friendship at River Oaks. They traveled the PGA Tour together and, in the late 1950s, teamed up to build Champions Golf Club. Burke was the one unafraid to ruffle feathers. The gregarious Demaret was the one who followed behind him and smoothed those same feathers.
Sixty years later, they’re both in the World Golf Hall of Fame and the club has hosted the 1967 Ryder Cup, 1969 U.S. Open, two Women’s Mid-Amateurs, the 1993 U.S. Amateur, five Tour Championships, five Houston Internationals (now Houston Open) and will host the 2020 U.S. Women’s Open.
Old-time influences
Burke has helped scores of players over the years — everyone from his contemporaries to Ben Crenshaw, Hal Sutton and Phil Mickelson — but doesn’t know today’s up-andcoming stars.
What he does know is what he’s been telling players for years.
“Playing on the tour, you can’t be thinking about money,’’ he said. “You have to be thinking about your next shot. You concentrate on what you’re doing, not what you’re not doing.’’
Today, Burke’s life revolves around family and the club and the family plans to celebrate his 95th birthday quietly Sunday with hamburgers on the grill.
Burke is emphatic, too, that the club’s junior players are taught the right way, which, to him, means an emphasis on family and the 34 Rules of Golf, which all members have to know.
Burke was taught by the Basilican priests at St. Thomas High, who, like his father, emphasized the 10 Commandments. Those priests and the Commandments were some of the greatest influences in his life and, like him, taught simple wisdom.
Which leads us to one last lesson — one that St. Thomas’ Father Allnoch gave Burke’s class decades ago. Burke calls it the best economics lesson he ever got and never tires of telling the story.
Father Allnoch wrote 50 on one side of chalkboard and 51 on the other. If you make this, he said pointing to 50, don’t spend this (pointing to 51).
Honest and to the point. Just like Burke.