Demaret: A Great Showman

When Demaret joined Snead to partner with him one year in the World Cup, Snead was worried that his nocturnal pace would affect their results. "That Jimmy, he wanted to go here, there, everywhere," Snead says. "He'd knock on your door at Augusta at 2 a.m. and say, 'Let's go have one.' But that World Cup, I told him I wanted him in bed by 10:30 every night. I didn't care if he was sleeping, as long as he was in his room. By God, he went to bed, played level par and we won by a bunch."

Demaret's smile brightened the golf scene for decades.

Burke, who spent more time around Demaret than anyone, says, "He never was stumbling around. He probably had a little too much every day, but it never did impair him." The truth was Demaret craved the company around him more than the drink in his hand. "He'd talk about going away somewhere where there was no phone or television," his daughter says. "He might go for two days, then he was ready to shoot himself--he had to come back to civilization."

There is the question of how much better a golf record Demaret might have achieved had he worked harder and socialized less, but there is no consensus. Snead says, "I think he would have won more had he tended to business, but that's just the way he was."

"I think he would have done things the same way," says his daughter.

"His career meant nothing to him," says Burke. "He enjoyed the people in it--the other things were a little bit boring to him."

Demaret was an easy touch for anyone who needed a few dollars. "The dollar didn't really mean a lot to Jimmy," says Burke. "He was extremely generous. He was quick to the draw at a beer joint, would pick up everybody's bar tab. The only time Jimmy balked is when he and I had to buy a piece of equipment for the club or something. When you started talking about $10,000 for the tractor, he'd stutter a little bit."

Because he was so generous, when he died those who didn't know him well wondered about his financial health, but they need not have been concerned. He was a "secret saver," according to one friend, who steered clear of risky ventures. One of Burke's children, Mike, became Demaret's financial advisor in the late 1970s. He was fresh out of the University of Houston at a brokerage in Austin, Texas, where he was supposed to be selling tax-free municipal bonds but for the moment was making coffee and washing the cars of his superiors. One day, Demaret called. "I told him I was making coffee," says Burke, "and he said, 'As soon as you figure out what you're selling, I'll take $100,000 worth."

In the aftermath of Demaret's substantial order, Burke's coffee-making and car-washing days came to a quick end. Demaret continued to do business with him, always insistent that his young friend do first-rate research first. One Christmas, Burke gave Demaret a small pair of scissors so he could clip his coupons. "Ahh, I like to just bite 'em off," Demaret said.

By the time Demaret died, purses were going up and laughs were going away. Looking back on his career shortly before his death in 1983, Demaret wrote, "There was a lot more camaraderie then. We had more fun. The new players are shooting for so much money their eyes are pinched in like BBs. The numbers are eating them up."

Demaret paid attention to a different kind of numbers. At Champions, they still play fivesomes regularly. It is an ode of sorts to Demaret, who liked the bigger group. The extra man afforded more games and more bets, but most important, for the sunniest of golfers, more laughs.