One of things that makes Houston such an endearing place to live is the city’s many characters, one of the most colorful of whom is Jack Burke, Jr., the former PGA Tour professional who retired at the age of 35 from the Tour in the late 1950’s to develop and operate Houston’s Champions Golf Club with his lifelong friend, the late Jimmy Demaret.
Burke — who is now 83 years old, but looks and acts like a much younger man — still runs Champions, which is one of Houston’s one of Houston’s finest golf clubs and the home club of such prominent golf swing gurus as Jim Hardy and Steve Elkington. I have had the pleasure of enjoying several lunches with Burke over the years, and they have always been highly entertaining as he holds forth with his sharp-edged and witty observations about the state of golf and its fascinating cast of characters.
Consequently, this Steve Campbell/Houston Chronicle article on the 50th anniversary of Burke’s 1956 Master’s Tournament victory is particularly interesting to me. Playing under the worst weather conditions in Master’s Tournament history (cold with 40-50 mph wind gusts), Burke charged from nine strokes back on the final day of the tournament with a one-under-par 71 to beat by a stroke the third round leader, a 24-year old car salesman from San Francisco named Ken Venturi. Twenty-nine players ó including Byron Nelson, Jimmy Demaret and Julius Boros ó shot 80 or above at Augusta National that day and the Sunday scoring average of 78.261 remains the highest for the last round in Master’s Tournament history. Burke’s one-over-par winning score of 289 matched the highest since the Masters began in 1934.

To give you an idea of how tough Augusta National played in those conditions, Burke hit driver-wedge to the back of the par-3 4th green playing into the wind on the hole during the final round. Burke, who was one of the best putters of his time and still gives putting tips to Tour pros, promptly rolled in a 30-foot putt to save par:

“It’s a downhill putt that I would lay you odds that you couldn’t two-putt,” Burke said. “It’s 1,000-to-1 you’re not going to make it. I could have putted it in the front bunker.”

Venturi — who had a habit of blaming others when he experienced a tough loss (see here and here) — shot 80 on that final day, but suggested after the tournament that Burke’s victory was tainted by Burke’s playing partner and buddy Mike Souchak helping Burke out with club selection and reading greens. Venturi’s allegation prompted Souchak to reply:

Souchak said he was happy to see “a close friend” win the Masters, [but] he wonders what he could have had to do with Burke’s $6,000 payday. “I know I got accused of helping Jackie the last day,” Souchak said. “But I shot 80 and took 42 putts. How could I help Jackie?”

The entire article is well worth reading, but I’ll leave you with the following gem from Burke regarding how life has changed on the PGA Tour since Burke followed up his Master’s victory with the 1956 PGA Championship:

The payoff for becoming the seventh player in history to win two majors in the same year: $5,000.
“It wasn’t like you were on top of the mountain,” Burke said.
Reality really set in when Burke tried to collect his PGA winnings.
“The check was hot,” Burke said. “The PGA had to guarantee my check.”