The mallet putter Jack Burke Jr. used to win the Masters half a
century ago leans against his desk. Other clubs and mementos from a long life in
golf adorn the big square room. But Burke’s office at Champions Golf Club in
Houston is no museum; it’s the wood-paneled command center of a busy CEO.
“No,” says the old pro into the phone. “Yes. OK, that’s great.
All right, I’ll talk to you later.” Hal Sutton calls a lot lately, but not, as
he once did, for a lesson or tips on captaining the Ryder Cup team. The 1983 PGA
champion is investing most of his time and a lot of his fortune in a golf course
development called Boot Ranch in Fredericksburg, Texas. Burke knows something
about this, too: He and his late partner, Jimmy Demaret, were the first (and
still the only) tour professionals to build, own and operate a high-end golf
club.
“Hal needs to get his ass out on the road and sell this thing,”
says Burke, who served as American captain in the 1957 and 1973 Ryder Cup
Matches and was Sutton’s assistant in 2004. “He needs to bring his PGA trophy
and shake hands.” Some of the best golfers in the world have beat a path to
Burke’s door for advice on matters on and off the course. The supplicants
include Sutton, Steve Elkington and Phil Mickelson.
Elkington once wondered aloud about hanging out a shingle as a
golf course architect. “Well, you dumb son of a bitch,” Burke told his neighbor
and student, “you’re gonna compete with Fazio and Dye and Trent Jones? Who’d
want you when they could have those guys?” The proud Aussie went ahead, but
Elkington Course Design didn’t last.
It’s Burke’s unique gift to call you a dumb son of a bitch while
somehow conveying a warmth and sincerity that make his message palatable. His
speech gets particularly direct during a lesson. “He’s a close talker. He gets
right in your face,” says Clark Dennis, a tour pro from Fort Worth, Texas. “And
he jabs you in the chest, to the point that it hurts.”
