Jack Burke Jr., one of the best players on the post-war PGA Tour and a popular instructor to some of the game’s biggest stars after winning two major golf championships in one season, died Friday in Houston. He was 100 years old and the oldest living winner of the Masters and PGA Championship.
A representative of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, which inducted him in 1978, confirmed his death.
Burke’s peak year came in 1956, when he won both the Masters and PGA titles and was named PGA Golfer of the Year.
His Masters win surprised almost everyone.
Just a few weeks ago, the 33-year-old Burke, who had gone winless since the 1953 Inverness in Ohio, announced that he was considering retirement. And going into the final round at Augusta National Golf Club, he didn’t make much of a splash, eight strokes behind Masters leader Ken Venturi.
All eyes were on Venturi, who at age 24 is vying to become the first amateur to win the Masters. But when Venturi faltered, Burke moved up the leaderboard, ahead of eight players, to win by one stroke.
He had some meteorological help.
“I hit a lightning-quick downhill putt on the 17th hole, and it went even faster because the 40-mile-per-hour wind blew sand over the green,” Burke told Golf Digest in 2004. When I touched that putt, I immediately thought, ‘Oh no, I’m not even halfway there yet.’ Then the wind caught the thing and continued blowing it down the hill until it fell into the middle of the hole and died. It was a miracle. “It was the best break of my career.”
That June, Burke defeated Ted Kroll to win the PGA Championship at Blue Hill Country Club in Canton, Massachusetts. Match play is based on the hole won in a head-to-head match, not the number of strokes made. On the scorecard.
Burke won 16 tournaments on the Professional Golfers’ Association Tour, including four in four weeks in 1952.
The son of a Houston golf club pro, Burke turned pro at age 17, joined the tour at 23 and was considered one of the most promising golfers of his generation.
In 1949, Burke, then living in Kiamesha Lake, Sullivan County, New York, recorded his first professional win, defeating veteran Gene Sarazen in the Metropolitan Open at his home course, Metropolis Country Club in White Plains. The victory comes 24 years after Burke’s father defeated Sarazen in the tournament. Sarazen pointed out to Jack Jr., ruefully but good-naturedly.
In 1952, after winning four consecutive tours and finishing second to Sam Snead in the Masters, Burke was featured in Collier magazine as “Golf’s New Hot-Shot.” At 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds, he could hit 265 yards off the tee and was an excellent putter. His boyish appearance added to his charm.
“His curly wispy auburn hair, blue eyes and occasionally shy smile have made him the darling of female links junkies,” the magazine wrote, identifying Burke as “one of golf’s most eligible bachelors.”
In 1957, Burke founded Champions Golf Club in Houston with his mentor Jimmy Demaret. Demaret has been an assistant pro under Burke’s father since Jack Jr. was 10 years old.
Burke and Demaret introduced a membership policy that only golfers with a handicap of 14 or less could join. This policy is still in effect. “I liken us to Stanford University, Yale and Harvard,” Burke told Golf Digest. “They don’t accept students with a D grade academically, and they don’t accept someone with a D average in golf.”
The club has hosted the 1969 US Open and the 2020 US Women’s Open Championship, among other tournaments.
Burke has earned a reputation as a longtime instructor for Phil Mickelson, Hal Sutton, Steve Elkington, and other experts. In his 70s, Arnold Palmer stopped by to take a class.
Jack Nicklaus once said of Burke: “I can’t tell you how many times we played golf and he would say, ‘Jack, how are you going to play that position?’”
John Joseph Burke Jr. was born in Fort Worth on January 29, 1923, the eldest of eight children, one of whom died young. He grew up in Houston, where his father, who tied for second in the 1920 U.S. Open, was a professional player at River Oaks Country Club.
Jack Jr. first played golf at age 6. At age 12, he shot 69 on a tough par 71 course. At age 16, he qualified for the US Open. However, at the age of 17, he entered the Rice Institute (now Rice University) in Houston at the urging of his mother. However, he left before completing his freshman year to become head professional at Galveston Country Club.
When World War II broke out, Burke joined the Marine Corps and taught combat training, including judo. He joined the PGA Tour (which officially became the PGA Tour in 1968) after the war, moved to New York State, and taught golf at clubs in New Jersey and New York City.
He first came to prominence in 1951 when he recorded two dominant victories in the Ryder Cup. This led to him playing in four more Ryder Cup events in the 1950s, in which he compiled a 7-1 record against European competition. He captained the Ryder Cup twice, winning in 1957 and winning in 1973.
In 1952, he won the Vardon Trophy, awarded to the tour leader in scoring average. (His height was 70.54.) When Burke was 81, Hal Sutton, the 2004 U.S. Ryder Cup captain, made him an assistant captain.
Burke was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2003, he received the PGA Tour’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the United States Golf Association’s Bob Jones Award. In 2007, he received the PGA Achievement Award.
Burke married Ielene Lang in 1952. She died in the mid-1980s. According to PGA historian Bob, in 1984, when he was 60 years old, he met Robin Moran, a freshman golfer at the University of Texas, on the putting green at Champions Golf Club. It is said that this is where her father sent her for her golf lessons. Denny. The couple married in 1987. She was a finalist in the 1997 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship and was inducted into the Texas Golf Hall of Fame. She survives him.
Burke had a daughter by his second wife and five children by his first wife, including a son, John J. Burke III, who died in 2017. Full information about his survivors was not immediately available.
Burke won two majors in one season, putting him in an elite group, but by his own choice he will never have the opportunity to achieve a Grand Slam, as it is understood today, by winning all four majors, either in a single season or in a career. It will. He missed the cut at the 1956 U.S. Open at Oak Hill Country Club outside Rochester and never played in the British Open.
Frank Litsky, a longtime Times sportswriter, died in 2018. William McDonald and Sofia Poznansky contributed reporting.
