Steve Elkington - "Jackie Burke and Jimmy Demaret" SHORT TRACK

Outro Music 0:07

Straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle. Then it started to hook just the wee-wee.

Steve Elkington 0:17

Golf seems very simple sometimes when you when you have one part of your game, and I and and we talked about this briefly a minute ago there about how do you get your game back when you're off. And for me, Bruce talked about fundamentals, but Mr. Burke would always make me make three footers because he said, you know, we gotta go back to where we know we can putt. And he said, no matter if you sp spray it all over the golf course, you know, Burke was all about, you know, making a three or four footer for power if he had to. So he always made me come back and make a ton of putts, you know.

Bruce Devlin 0:49

Well you'll remember the story about him and uh Hal Sutton, don't you? On the putting green at Champions. I'm sure there's a million on, but I want to hear it again. Whatever it is, I want to hear it. He he came to he came to Champions and uh Burke said to him, uh go out and hit some putts. He said I'll be out there in a little bit. So he goes out there and he's putting he's putting for about eight feet. And Burke sort of snuck out there and watched him putting he missed one to the left, then he missed one to right. Walked up to him and he said, uh Bring him back and start again. He had four balls, so he hits one, he uh misses it left. Hits the next one and misses it right. Then he holds it and he leaves it short, and Burke walked up to him and he slapped him right on the side of the face. And he said, What the hell did you do that for? He said, Does that hurt? And Sutton said, Yeah, sure it hurts. He said, Well, missing those putts like that ought to hurt too. So just remember what I did. In other words, learn how to make it, son, instead of standing there left, right, left, right, doing army putts.

Steve Elkington 1:59

Wanted to see a little pain when you missed it. Right. Yeah, I I knew that story. Phil Mickelson came to see Mr. Burke. Uh he hadn't won a major yet, and he showed up at Champions. I was there. And Mr. Burke, same thing, sent him out there. And Mr. Burke said, Look, I don't know why you're here or whatever, but I'm going to tell you what I tell everyone. He said, I need you, you got to make a hundred in a row around, you know, around the wheel, you know, around this screen. And Phil Mickelson said, Well, I can do that right now. I've flown all the way down here, I can do that already. And Mr. Burke says, Well, how much do you want to bet? And Mickelson said, Oh, I'll bet you the best steak dinner in town. So he misses on the fifth one. And Mr. Burke gets right up in his face and he says, How about we try it again for 25,000 this next time? So, I mean, not many people can push back Phil Mickelson, you know, with betting, but now he's got him, he's got him pushed back. And he missed it on the third time on the next go-around. Well, then we saw out on tour where Phil was doing that around the horn drill, and they thought it was all him, and it all started with uh with Jackie Burke. And uh he finally did, you know, Phil Mickelson did go on to do what we all thought he would do, was win a ton of majors, but it all started with the confidence of the ring around the circle there.

Bruce Devlin 3:14

So I haven't seen him in uh in a few years as he's is he he's getting along there, isn't he, age-wise. I went down to Houston for his 93rd birthday, had a great time with him. We we sat on the big chairs in front of the fireplace uh when they were playing the golf tournament there, and uh uh he he's still he was a still scrappy Jack Burke that he was, I'm sure, back in the in the late 60s and 70s.

Steve Elkington 3:39

Oh yeah. He's 98 now and he's slowing down pretty good, but he uh he's still there every day, and uh I just saw him this morning. I was over there and I saw him and our clubhouse uh got all water damaged, so we've got no clubhouse at champions from this yeah. So he's all you know, he we're trying to get things going there. So he's he's working just like always.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

And you've had a long and special relationship with him, haven't you?

Steve Elkington 4:08

I have. He's like a surrogate father to me, you know, being that I've been away from my f family for so long. But you know, I used to think about Jack Burke that, you know, I don't think I could have done what I was able to do on the tour, because I would come back from the tour all beat up. We always everybody gets beat up on the tour, and and he would untangle that somehow and he would get me thinking back on track real quick, like what I'm not supposed to be. He'd he'd have a simple word that'd say, You gotta think about what you're supposed to be doing and not what you're not supposed to be doing. And and he was that he was always able to get you focused back on you know looking back, it's it's getting you away from all the self-doubt that you have, Bruce.

Bruce Devlin 4:53

You always have a lot when you play the tour. He was always positive. Yeah. I I I never heard him say something that that wasn't positive. Yeah.

Steve Elkington 5:04

And you know, I've been around him for 40 years now, and and I know everything, you know, and he's like the you know, the matriarch of American golf now. He's the oldest masters champion. He has a lot of a lot of clout uh with a lot of people, and he runs nice events for amateurs. He thinks very strongly about amateur golf and loves, you know, loves to see good players, keeps our membership fee real low so he can attract good players, and he's all about he's all about golf.

Bruce Devlin 5:35

Well, and I I had uh I'll tell you one little story about him. Um Bob Charles and I had uh had won the uh CBS Golf Classic tournament where you you know we were playing better balls, and we decided to spend a week in Houston and get a chance to play with both Jackie Burke and DeMarit when DeMarit was still around. And again, you know, as a as a young even even though we'd had some success on the tour, it was it was quite a week to uh teared up every day. I think we played five days out of the seven days that we were there. We played with Burke and uh Demarritt, and that was uh it was just a fabulous week.

Steve Elkington 6:17

I got to know him, you know, of course I built my house next to Jackie Burke, my first little house when I first got out of college. He was single and I was single. We we were together all the time, and then he married, and then I got married, and we moved over the other side of the champions. But um De Merritt, I was there one year in 1983 before he before he's he wasn't with us anymore. But he came out to watch us one day, and I'd never really met Demerit, and it was the rodeo was in town at Houston, and and this guy had he had these custom jeans on, and on the back of the custom jeans, he had this full quill ostrich yoke that was somehow made into these pants, and then on the back of the shirt, he had the same deal, and then and then the bandana on his hat had the same deal. And I just looked at it and I thought, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen in my whole life. And he came out and watched this play, and I just I couldn't, I was just I couldn't believe how cool Demerit was. I mean, can you imagine Demerit in this day and age now, the way he used to dress and sing and hang out and all that? Well, I I Would they would he would he make it now or would they just eat him up and they wouldn't let him be him?

Bruce Devlin 7:31

Uh they'd probably eat him up. Uh when I had I had my legs operated in 1965 at Sharpstown Hospital. Uh the second day that I was after the surgery, uh two guys walked in my in my uh hospital room. One was Burke and the other was Demarritt. And uh DeMarit walked up to the to the bed and he handed me a package, and it was a mink jock strap. So you see?

Mike Gonzalez 8:08

We hope you've enjoyed this short track of For the Good of the Game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word, and tell your friends. Until we tee it up again for the good of the game, so long, everybody.

Outro Music 8:28

It went smack down the fairway. When it started just like just smacked off line. It headed for two, but it mounted off nine. My head is as long as you're still in the stage you're okay. It went smacked down the middle five.