John Joseph Burke, Jr. – Jackie Burke to the golf world – was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and passed away on January 19, 2024, just 10 days shy of his 101st birthday. After high school, Burke attended Rice University. He played in the U.S. Open in 1941 but missed the cut. In 1942, Burke joined the Marine Corps and was stationed at Air Station Miramar in California, where he taught combat skills to marines headed overseas for World War II. He served until 1946. After several club teaching jobs, he turned to professional tour golf in 1949. Burke’s finest year was in 1956, when he won both the Masters and the PGA Championship. In all he won 16 PGA Tour tournaments. In 1956 he won Player of the Year; in 2003 he was presented with the PGA Tour Lifetime Achievement Award; and in 2004 he won the Bob Jones Award for sportsmanship. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2000.
In 1957, as his playing career was winding down, he and Jimmy Demaret founded Champions Golf Club in Houston, which has hosted dozens of professional and amateur tournaments over the years, including the PGA Championship a total of five times. In his wonderful 2006 book, “It’s Only A Game: Words of Wisdom From A Lifetime in Golf,” he wrote: “Sometimes we win because we control our performance and expect success. Most of the time, though, we win because others lose. Be cautious about judging yourself a champion.” Also: “Don’t let the thought of improving turn into a fantasy We have enough dreamers. Get out on the course and go to work.”
Chi Chi Rodriguez, one of the most popular and most entertaining ever in professional golf, passed away on August 8, 2024 at age 88. Born Juan Antonio Rodriguez, Jr. on October 23, 1935 in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, he was one of six children. He played baseball as a young man and adopted the name “Chi Chi” for himself after his favorite baseball player in Puerto Rico, Chi Chi Flores. As a boy he began caddying at a course in Puerto Rico and taught himself to play golf using limbs from guava trees to propel crushed tin cans into holes he had dug on baseball fields. When he was 12 he shot 67 with real golf balls on a real golf course.
Rodriguez played 591 PGA Tour events and made 422 cuts; he would win eight times on the PGA Tour, winning by one stroke over Arnold Palmer in the 1964 Western Open and winning the 1972 Byron Nelson Classic in a playoff over Billy Casper. He would later win 22 tournaments on the PGA Tour Champions. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1992.
As a player, he wasn’t always appreciated by other members of the tour, and some were annoyed by his antics. Rodriguez believed that “golf is show business (and) I love to make people laugh.” One of his most famous tricks was his “sword dance”: after holing a longish putt he would unleash and wave his putter like it was a sword, wipe the “blood” off the blade with his towel and mimic putting it back into the sheath.
Rodriguez was one of golf’s great humanitarians, founding the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation in 1979. Partnering with The First Tee of Clearwater, Florida, he created the Chi Chi Rodriguez Golf Club, helping hundreds of kids learn golf. The public-private Chi Chi Rodriguez Academy serves grades 4 through 8 with the public school system of Pinellas County for children that need help.
