Burke, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, also won the PGA Championship and was equally skilled as a teacher.
He built the fabled Champions Golf Club in Houston and delivered lessons along with a dose of homespun wisdom.
Jack Burke Jr dons the Masters green jacket, helped by previous champ Cary Middlecoff, in 1956. (AP PHOTO)
"Why did golf give us 34 rules when God only gave us 10 commandments?" he said over dinner at his home in Houston in 2000, one of endless examples of a sharp wit always grounded in common sense.
Burke won two majors in 1956 when he was the PGA player of the year, none more famous than his staggering rally at the Masters when he started the final round eight shots behind Ken Venturi.
In conditions so blustery only two players broke par, Burke posted a one-under 71 for a one-shot victory over Venturi, who shot 80.
Later that year, Burke defeated Ted Kroll, 3 and 2, to win the PGA.
Those were among his 16 victories on the PGA Tour, including four straight in early 1952, three of them by six shots or more.
He was on five straight Ryder Cup teams and won seven of his eight matches. The lone loss was in 1957 when Burke was a playing captain and Great Britain won for the first time since World War II.
Burke's last PGA Tour victory was in 1963, but his career was far from over. He was as much a teacher as a player, and a Texan through and through.
Born in Fort Worth, he grew up in Houston while his father, Jack Burke, was the head pro at River Oaks Country Club.
His father died when Burke was serving in the Marines during World War II, where he taught combat skills at Miramar near San Diego.
"They asked me to help with teaching martial arts because, as a golfer, I'm familiar with timing and balance — and both are very important," Burke told the USGA in 2017.
"I had been instructing golf all my life because my dad taught me how to teach. So teaching these other things was not a problem."
When the war ended, Burke became a teaching pro in New Jersey and then got a job as an assistant under Claude Harmon at Winged Foot. That led to a club pro job at Metropolis Country Club in New York.
He finished 45th on the money list in nine events in 1949, and he was credited with his first PGA Tour victory a year later at the Bing Crosby Pro-Am at Pebble Beach as he began to build his fine career.
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