Demaret: A Great Showman

Demaret might pair a dusty rose cardigan with an electric blue shirt and green suede shoes. Or he could choose garments of flaming scarlet, peach, purple, tangerine, burgundy, canary yellow or vermillion topped with a showy tam crocheted by his mother-in-law, Ethel. It was a 64-Crayola collection that set a vivid standard for peacocks such as Doug Sanders and Payne Stewart who followed him. Snead remembers arriving at a hotel in South America once with Demaret to play some exhibitions, and as soon as his friend got out of the car, necks craned and traffic stopped. "When he got out of that car," Snead says, "it was like everybody stopped breathing." He was paying for clothes what people were putting down on a house: In 1954, he counted 71 pairs of slacks, 55 shirts, 39 sportcoats and 20 sweaters. Over the years he accumulated hundreds of pairs of shoes, most with a brightly covered saddle, and when he got older, he'd let friends go up in his attic and pick out a pair to take home. Decades before Forrest Fezler slipped on a pair of shorts during the 1974 U.S. Open, Demaret defied authority and bared his legs during a hot tournament in Chicago.

Hogan, left, admired Demaret's creative game and enjoyed him as a friend.

While people noticed what he wore, they remembered what he said. In an era when most pros worried much more about keeping their shag bag full of golf balls than filling reporters' notebooks, Demaret was full of witty observations, one-liners usually, that often had him laughing before he finished his delivery. "He could put people down without being mean, and he told jokes on himself," says former tour pro Bob Goalby. "He acted like he knew you even if he didn't. He made you feel good about yourself."

A gas siphon hose was an "Oklahoma credit card." Lew Worsham, the 1947 U.S. Open champion who had a prominent chin, was "the only guy in the world with a built-in bib." When Sam Snead started putting with a side-saddle style, Demaret said, "He looks like he's basting a turkey." At the Crosby one year, everyone awoke Sunday morning--some after less sleep than others--to see Pebble Beach coated with snow. "I know I got loaded last night, but how did I wind up in Squaw Valley?" Demaret said. Of Bob Hope, Demaret quipped, "He has a wonderful short game. Unfortunately it's off the tee."

Demaret's humor could pop up at any time, prompted by almost anything. "He had the freshest, sharpest wit," says Riviere. "He could respond to any situation with something funny, and it was always his?he didn't steal material from anybody. We always felt if he kidded you, he liked you." Riviere, his brother,?Jay, and Dave Marr--a trio Demaret had taken under his wing--headed out on the 1959 winter tour without much success. "The Crosby was about the fourth tournament of the year and Jimmy shows up," Riviere says. "He said, 'I wasn't coming out this early but I was worried about you. I thought you might have been killed.' "

Johnny Bulla remembers one Masters in the early 1950s when Frank Stranahan, the buff amateur, showed up after an off-season of working on a swing that looked much different than it used to. Demaret, waiting to tee off at the first hole, peeped, "I thought Hogan was the one who had the accident." Johnny Carson was a foil for Demaret on an appearance on "The Tonight Show" in the 1960s. Carson swung a club and asked Demaret what he thought. Demaret, shifting positions to get a different view, asked him to swing again. And again. "Tell you what, John," he finally said. "If I were you, I'd lay off for a couple of weeks." Demaret paused--Cary Middlecoff at the top of his backswing--and told Carson, "And then I'd quit."

Demaret came from grinding poverty, a family of nine children that often wondered how their plates were going to get filled. Some of the children lived for periods in other homes so life wouldn't be so hard. "We were a very poor family," says the youngest of the Demaret children, Mahlon, who was 13 years younger than Jimmy. "He had quit school and was caddieing and shining shoes by the time I came along." The circumstance of his youth, according to his daughter, forged his outlook later. "If you struggle hard when you're growing up," says Peggy Jackson, "never knowing where you'll get your next meal, you treasure the things you have."

By the time he was 16, Demaret was working as an assistant pro to Jack Burke Sr. at the exclusive River Oaks CC in Houston. Occasionally, Demaret would babysit the young Jackie Burke, who was 3 when Demaret started at River Oaks, but he spent most his time sanding wooden shafts, building clubs and then polishing clubheads when they rusted. The labor strengthened Demaret's large hands and inflated his forearms, giving him a blacksmith's power.