Nobody's Fool: Want to know how to play golf, how to teach golf, and how to run a great club without spending a fortune? Ask Jackie Burke, who doesn't pull any punches

Golf Digest, July, 2002 by Nick Seitz

Secrets of a successful golf club

"A lot of our people have been here that long," says Burke, the club president and majority stockholder. "I like continuity, and committees can't accomplish that. We don't have committees; I'm the committees, and there's a board. The question has always been whether two dumb asses like me and Demaret could make this work.

"If you take care of the staff," he goes on, "the staff takes care of the members. If a member doesn't like the way his sandwich is toasted, he's told to write the board, not chastise the help. I don't believe in extra staffing. Our people fill different roles depending on the needs of the day, and they get paid a lot of overtime. They like it that way--they're tired but rich."

The L-shaped men's locker room that inspires the Rhubarb format is the grandest feature of the understated clubhouse, and reflects the studious thought Demaret and Burke put into their dream of creating a great golf club as they traveled the world (the women's locker room is less grand but impressive nonetheless). It is Texas scale, with high ceilings and wide aisles, yet feels comfortable, with cozy alcoves, thick carpeting, stuffed chairs around big card tables, spacious wooden lockers and a convivial bar where, according to local lore, Demaret would stand by the hour telling stories, buck naked.

The club never closes, with security and cleanup crews on duty seven nights a week until breakfast is served. One of the two courses might be shut down for maintenance on a Monday, but the other will be open. The Cypress Creek Course, which has become the biennial home of the Tour Championship, also has played host since it opened in 1958 to tour events from 1966-'71, the 1967 Ryder Cup, 1969 U.S. Open, 1993 U.S. Amateur and 1998 Women's Mid-Amateur. The pros love it, because it puts the driver back in their hands. Vijay Singh spread his arms wide and told Burke delightedly, "I can swing my arms here."

The course, heavily treed with huge greens, can play at 7,200 strategic yards now, and there's enough land to add another 250 yards. "Every time you add a hundred yards, you add a stroke," Burke says. "We left extra room in case we needed it, but we didn't know Tiger Woods and these kids were coming."

Tom Fazio finished a major reworking of the tighter Jackrabbit Course last year, and the early reviews are glowing. Lengthened to its limit of 7,100 yards, it will be used for a day of the Champions Cup that draws two-player amateur teams from different states, as well as for USGA qualifiers and college competitions.

Burke is famously frugal, and negotiating with Fazio for the Jackrabbit project, he reminded the architect what Fazio's uncle George had been paid to do the course in the early 1960s. Fazio in turn reminded Burke that his fee ran to a million dollars and up. But Fazio says he planned all along to waive the fee, because of his special feeling for Burke and Champions and what they have meant to the game and his design company.

"I told Jackie I'd charge him a fee he couldn't refuse," Fazio says. "Nothing."