Masters Winner Turns 100 This Weekend
Masters Winner Turns 100 This Weekend
Jackie Burke, the winner of the 1956 MASTERS will turn 100 years old this weekend.
He is the oldest living winner of both the MASTERS and the PGA Championship.
It’ll be a big weekend at the Champions Golf Club in Houston. Coffee, cake and ice cream will be served at the club he co-founded in 1957 with another MASTERS winner, Jimmy Demaret.
Butch Harmon, the renowned teacher who at age six was taught how to get the ball airborne by Burke. Ben Crenshaw, who credits Burke as an influence along with Harvey Penick will be driving in from Austin. Jim Crane, the owner of the Houston Astros will be bringing the World Series trophy to the event.
He retired as a player almost 60 years ago. He was one of the top players in the 1950’s, winning 16 times on the PGA Tour, in an era that included Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Cary Middlecoff and Lloyd Mangrum. In the 1956 MASTERS he came from eight shots back to beat Ken Venturi. Three months later, he won the PGA Championship, the last time the tournament was conducted at match play.
He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2000. Speaking of Jimmy Demaret, Demaret babysat Burke.
He gave life advice too, once famously saying “Leisure time is dangerous. You might wind up inside a bottle of bourbon. You were put on earth to produce, so get with it”.
Years ago, the likened life’s journey to climbing a tree, with the focus on reaching the top, “Sooner or later, though, you have to climb down the tree, the secret is not to break too many branches on the way down”
