I’ve been photographing the game of golf for over two decades. It might be a tournament on deadline, a long-form feature or photo essay, or one of the countless portraits of people who have somehow had an impact—some fleeting, some lasting—on the game. In all that time, there have been three people I’ve come across who I call the “Misters.” As in, some combination of awe and respect that dictates that I would never, ever—even approaching the half-century mark myself—dream of calling them by their first name. There was, of course, Mr. Nelson. And Mr. Palmer. And then there is Mr. Burke.

As in Jack Burke, Jr.,1956 Masters and PGA champion and founder, along with Jimmy Demaret, of Champions Golf Club in Houston..

Living in Austin as I do, a relative stone’s throw away from Houston, it stood to reason that when magazines like Golf Digest or Sports Illustrated were working on features of him, I would get the call to head out to Champions. I first met Mr.Burke in 2004 on assignment for Golf Digest. I’ve since had the opportunity to photograph him seven more times in the past 15 years, making him not only my most photographed portrait subject in the golf universe (or any other, for that matter), but my favorite as well. Because a visit with Mr. Burke is always a treat.

2004. Horseman LX-C, Schneider Super-Angulon 210mm f 5.6, Polaroid Type 55. For Golf Digest. — **2004.** Horseman LX-C, Schneider Super-Angulon 210mm f 5.6, Polaroid Type 55. For *Golf Digest.*

Each time brought something different and memorable—be it our first meeting where he invited me to lunch afterwards, and proceeded to launch into a soliloquy on the proper way to make bleu cheese dressing, or our second where I met his wife of 30 years, Robin, as he gave her a lesson on the driving range, or our third, where he chuckled as we brought in a bulldog in a leather bomber jacket to sit beside him (“I believe that if you lock a hundred bulldogs inside a yard, you're going to wind up with some funny-looking bulldogs,” he had said in the piece I was shooting him for).

One day, on a shoot for Golf Digest about 10 years ago, I decided to photograph an old-school legend with an old-school legend of my own, a clunky, 1960-s era Linhof Technika III 4x5 view camera. Using one of these things is a very deliberate process, and Mr. Burke stood with a bemused look on his face as I manipulated the focusing knobs and clicked buttons and pulled levers to set up the shot (you only get one at a time, so you’d better get it right) from beneath a black light-proof cloth draped over my head.

“You’re very…” He paused, searching for the word. “Pragmatic. Aren’t you?” He huffed.

2011. Linhof Technika III, Schneider-Linhof 240mm f5.6, Kodak Tri-X. For Golf World. — **2011.** Linhof Technika III, Schneider-Linhof 240mm f5.6, Kodak Tri-X. For *Golf World*.

Fast-forward a couple of years and I’m back at Champions, with the chance to shoot him again, this time for the USGA as the club hosted the 2017 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur. I used a much smaller camera this time, but I’m still a bit of a perfectionist and was admittedly slow-playing things a bit.

2017. Sony A7rII, Leica 75mm f1.4 Summilux-M. For the United States Golf Association. — **2017.** Sony A7rII, Leica 75mm f1.4 Summilux-M. For the United States Golf Association.

He was 94 then, and you could tell that time was catching up with him. But he looked straight into the lens as I fine-tuned the focus. “I remember you. You’re…you’re very…pragmatic.”

I’m not sure that’s the word he meant to use, and it’s not exactly the right word in this situation but here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter. None of it matters when you’re sitting with Mr. Burke, whether he’s posing for a portrait or you’re talking to him in that office of his, adorned with hundreds of historic photos of legends past, of awards and trinkets and mementos that illustrate a life in golf lived to the fullest. You don’t come to Champions and visit with Mr. Burke to get precise quotes; don’t make the mistake of trying to draw something out of him with a question and expect a concise, on-point answer. No, you visit with Mr. Burke to take it all in, to listen, to envelop yourself in a whirlwind of philosophies, bon mots, and random thoughts. You have no idea where things are going to go—sometimes even from one sentence to the next—or how things are going to turn out. But about an hour after you leave the room, as you put it all together in your head, somehow, it all makes perfect sense.

So when I drove to Houston to photograph and “interview” Mr. Burke for my first contribution to The Golfer’s Journal, I knew just what I was in for, and couldn’t wait.

The plan was for me to spend a little time with Mr. Burke, hang around Champions with him, and document part of his day. Now 96, he still kept a pretty full schedule there, interacting with staff and members and generally keeping an eye on things at his club—and make no mistake, it is Mr. Burke’s club.

But there was something else I wanted to do: photograph him on that same clunky and “pragmatic” 4x5 camera, but using a film stock long since discontinued—Polaroid Type 55—an instant film that gives you both a print and a negative at the same time, Type 55 hasn’t been made in over a decade, and some of us saved our last boxes of it, guarding it with our lives, waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it. The last person I’d used it with was Mr. Nelson, back in September of 2006. Since then I’d kept my stockpile of 20 sheets hibernating in the crisper drawer of 3 different refrigerators as I moved over the years, saving it, like the photographer’s equivalent of a fine wine, for just the right occasion.

Regardless of how easy digital photography has made things lately, I couldn’t pass this one up.

The thing is, Type 55 was inherently unpredictable, even when it was in season…Add 15 years of sitting in the fridge and, well, now you really don’t know. You do what you’re supposed to do: awkwardly focus the old beast of a camera, best-guess the exposure, trip the shutter. Much like a conversation with my subject himself, you really have no idea what you’re going to get, but you just have to know that it will all come out all right in the end.

And so you take the sleeve of shot film, wait a minute for it to develop, peel apart the paper backing, and peek inside.

The random acts of time will have taken their toll. Maybe it’s a little fuzzy around the edges, fogged up by age, brittle and deserving of a little more careful handling than it was in its prime, and it probably won’t give you the pristine, clear, overall snap-sharp definition that you’ve become accustomed to. But right there in the middle, in spite of the everything swirling around the periphery, in the heart of what the lens saw, is the unmistakable visage of the legend, the face just as determined, the eyes just as sparkly, as they were in those old black-and-white pictures of him in 1956 when he claimed golf’s ultimate prize.

It’s a joy to behold. A treasure. An original. And the best thing about it?

It’s one of a kind. Irreplaceable.