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

Burke quickly said, "That's exactly the figure I had in mind."

He paid expenses for Fazio and his people, and made a sizable donation to Fazio's youth charities. Fazio says, "He thinks of everything to save the club money. He's proud of having his own laundry to wash tablecloths and towels, because it's expensive to send them out."

The late player/teacher Gardner Dickinson once told Fazio how Burke economized in the days when tour pros had to provide their own practice balls: Burke would work his way down the line on the range before a round, dispensing swing tips and demonstrating what he meant by hitting a few balls belonging to one player after another. By the time Burke finished, Dickinson said, he had hit every club in his bag and was ready to tee off. Dickinson added that the instruction from Burke was welcome.

Demaret and Burke would drive together on tour, and Demaret joked that every time they had to stop to buy gas, Burke had managed to fall asleep in the passenger seat and avoid paying. "He may not be the leading money-winner on tour," Demaret said, "but he's the leading money-saver."

A BARGAIN FOR GOLF LOVERS

Champions members benefit from Burke's thrift. The initiation fee is $20,000, which buys a stake in the club, and dues are $360 a month with no food minimum--a bargain. You only get in, of course, if your handicap is low enough and you convince Burke of your unwavering love for the game. His private lecture to a new member covers mandates to play in four hours or less and to respect the rules, not moving the ball if you expect to have a handicap and remain a member. Walking is strongly preferred.

"You play your way in, you don't buy your way in," Burke says. "Good players don't have $100,000 for a club. This club is an examination of your golf skills. It's about putting a number in the brass box after a round. We have about a thousand members, and 428 of them are single-digit handicaps--145 are 5 or better. I doubt you can find 145 people who can play the piano."

Burke gets the revenue from the golf shop and the carts. On an organization chart he reports to a board, but on the firing line he oversees the corporation with unquestioned efficiency.

His business key? "Make sure you know the most direct way to the bank, without middlemen and side deals. Keep it clean. We've got an Enron accountant in the club, and I said to him, 'Man, what school did you go to?' We've never had an assessment. Never. How about that? Guest fees help hold down the costs."

Golf is the only game at Champions. When a prospective member asked about tennis courts, Burke pointed into the distance and said, "The Raveneaux Club has them. Go join there." Champions offers no dance floor or meeting rooms or, as Burke enjoys saying, baked Alaska on the menu to burn the place down.

"The job of the club is to get something going to play in," he says. "The true assets of a golf club are the hours the members have in the game. I'm amazed by clubs like Shinnecock and Winged Foot that have lasted. In Texas the game isn't that old. We're known more for barbecue and beer and stock shows. It takes a hundred years to build a club. Champions is still a work in progress."