A very special 96th birthday to golf’s oldest-living Major Champion – Jackie Burke Jnr and a person I had the great pleasure of meeting and sitting in his office at his beloved Champions GC in Houston, Texas in March of last year (2018).
Burke Jnr was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1923.
Thirty-three years later n 1956 he wrote his name into the golfing history books in capturing the 1956 Masters and also that same year, the PGA Championship at the Blue Hill CC in Canton, Massachusetts.
Jackie Burke Jr – Born January 29th, 1923 and at 96-years of age the proud Texan continues to be golf’s oldest Major winner
In his Masters win, Burke brilliantly came from eight strokes behind in the final round, with a one-under 71 to overtake leader Ken Venturi, then an amateur, who collapsed in shooting an 80 (+8). Perhaps Burke’s most famous match was his nine-hour, 40-hole quarterfinal loss at the 1955 PGA Championship but then next year Burke went the distance in the then match play format and won.
Burke contested 55 Majors in his career but never teed-up in golf’s oldest Major – The Open.
Burke won the PGA Tour’s Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average in 1952, a season in which he won four straight Tour events.
Jackie Burke’s office at the Champions Club is like a museum (Photo – www.golfbytourmiss.com)
Burke played in five Ryder Cups from 1951 to 1959 and was playing captain in 1957 while he was chosen in 1973 as non-playing captain, and he was never on a losing USA Ryder Cup team.
He shares a permanent locker at Augusta with Tiger Woods, but Burke has not attended The Masters for many years.
As he said to me when I travelled in March 2018 to his beloved Champions Club in Houston to meet with Burke he simply does not know anybody at The Masters.
“I haven’t been back to Augusta for about eight years as I can fly there and I don’t want to drive and why would I want to find somewhere to say for just one meal,” Burke said to me last March.
Jack Burke Jr’s office within his beloved Champions GC in Houston Texas (Photo 2018 – www.golfbytourmiss.com)
“Then I don’t know the players who attend the dinner as Snead’s gone, Hogan’s left us, Demaret’s gone. They’re all gone so I would just not know anyone. Like I wouldn’t know Jordan Spieth. I don’t know Bubba Watson”
“I’ve met Tiger a few times at the dinner but I don’t know him all that well.”
In meeting Burke last year, and during Houston Open week, he was the second oldest-living Major Champion and a few months younger than Doug Ford but very sadly Ford passed away on May 14th, 2018 and thus handing the ‘honour’ to Burke.
An enormous pleasure to be in the company of Jackie Burke Jr (Photo – www.golfbytourmiss.com)
