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Court was in session. Judge Jackie Burke Jr. was standing on the first tee box at Redstone Golf Club, just about to work up a full head of soliloquy. PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem tried to interject. “Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking,” Burke said, which the tour’s chief executive officer took as a cue to stop and listen some more. Burke has been giving the world an earful for the better part of his 82 years. CEOs and kings alike find themselves with little choice but to listen. And maybe, just maybe, learn a little something. At the Champions Dinner before the 2004 Masters, Burke presented Arnold Palmer with a rope and some instructions. “This is what you have to stand behind,” Burke told Palmer, not so subtly suggesting that the time had come to cease and desist from stepping inside the ropes to play at Augusta National. “I think he’s ready. Some of those swings I’ve seen, he needs to be behind the ropes.” Burke is more than 40 years removed from his last victory as a professional, but he still has a swing to behold. He hit the ceremonial tee shot Wednesday to commemorate the tour’s Drive For a Billion for charity campaign. Laced it down the fairway, the swing still sweeter than old Georgia Brown. 1938 modelHe did it using a replica persimmon driver. A 1938 model. That’s two years after Burke captured the Texas PGA Championship — the first of 17 tour victories. “There are very few people capable of hitting this thing,” Burke said. “They’ve got to find someone who can get it off the ground.” The Shell Houston Open begins today at Redstone. The purse is $5 million, with $900,000 going to the winner. Burke won the SHO twice — by six strokes in 1952, by way of an 18-hole playoff with Julius Boros in 1959. His career earnings at the SHO, where he finished in the top 10 nine times: $19,883. One way to look at it is that Burke was born too early. Another way to look at it is that Burke was the right man in the right place at the right time. He wound up teaming up with Jimmy Demaret to build a legacy at Champions Golf Club. Demaret and Burke are partners in immortality at the World Golf Hall of Fame. If Burke had come along in an age when he could have struck it rich, who knows? “Sometimes it ends your career,” Burke said. “You get bloated. It’s pretty hard to get desire after you’ve got more money than Billy Ford does. I would lose my incentive with a bank full of cash, wouldn’t you? I’d try to find a lot of porches to sit on.” Burke won four tournaments in a row in 1952. Instead of getting bronzed, Burke collected $8,000 — or $1.252 million less than Tiger Woods made less than two weeks ago for winning the Masters. He pocketed $2,000 for his second SHO victory. Nowadays … Not worthy of caddie”The caddie wouldn’t even take that check,” Burke said. “I’d just like to be a caddie out here. I don’t need to be a player. How’d you like to be Tiger’s caddie for just one year? I’d like to see the leading money winner in the caddie barn. That’s who I want to see. I’d just like to see what money really looks like.” Not that Burke didn’t appreciate the aesthetics of the Woods-Chris DiMarco duel at Augusta National. Just as he appreciated the Phil Mickelson-Ernie Els showdown two years ago, in Palmer’s 50th and final Masters. “It was kind of like Mickelson last year, where Els was pushing him,” Burke said. “This kid was pushing Tiger big-time. Sometimes you forget to choke. You just keep on grinding.” Burke still plays the occasional round: “I can probably shoot 75.” And what did Burke make of Woods’ roller-coaster ride of a chip-in for birdie at No. 16 in the final round? “Five loaves and the fish,” Burke said. “It takes Moses to beat him.” Neither Woods nor his American teammates had anything like that up their sleeves last September at the Ryder Cup. As an assistant captain to Hal Sutton, Burke had an up-close, aghast view of the American team getting routed at Oakland Hills. Still, the ordeal wasn’t an entire waste for Burke. He had to don some formal wear that “gives me something to get buried in.” When the dark day comes that Burke is six feet under, he wants to take a blade putter with him. Heavenly greens”I don’t know how fast the greens will be up there,” he said. Fast greens, Burke can handle. Whether he can come to grips with his youngest daughter, Meghan, learning to drive is another matter. “I carry rosary beads in every pocket now,” Burke said. GolfOnline???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? mp69??,mp59?????? © http://www.golfonline.jp/ . All Rights Reserved. (???????)
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