A LOOK BACK
Waco Turner BY DEL LEMON
Eccentric oilman brought the world’s best golfers to tiny burneyville
The following is excerpted from The Story of Golf in Oklahoma by Del Lemon, first published in 2001 by the University of Oklahoma Press in Norman. We recomend you purchase Del’s excellent book, available in hardcover for $24.95, from the OU Press at www.oupress.com
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f all the venues in the United States ever to host a professional golf tournament, few would seem less likely than tiny Burneyville, Okla., tucked away in the cotton and ranch country of the Red River Valley, about halfway between Oklahoma City and Dallas. Even at the beginning of the 21st century, almost 50 years after PGA and LPGA stars brought the dateline “Burneyville” to sports pages around the country, so modest is the south-central Oklahoma hamlet at a river bend in the sand hills that state highway maps do not even assign it a population. The nearest major airport is 150 miles away. This tract of Love County, just south of the Old Indian Trail between Marietta and Spanish Fort, was settled in 1844 by the Burney family, prominent citizens of the Chickasaw tribe, who emigrated to Oklahoma from Mississippi. A post office was opened on May 5, 1879, and the name Burneyville was chosen to honor one of the first settlers from Mississippi, Wesley B. Burney, and his son, David C. Burney. Even during its “boom” years between 1910 and 1915, Burneyville topped out at a population of 85. There were two doctors, a grocery, hotel, church, blacksmith, drugstore, cotton buyer and two general merchandise stores. Ninety years later, all that remained of Burneyville were a post office, a couple of dozen homes, a Baptist church and a cemetery. An L-shaped country lane dips down off State Highway 32 to take locals and the curious there. But back along the main highway, heading a little farther west, signs of a flourishing community greet visitors: an expansive, onestory structure, proudly flying the American and Oklahoma flags – with block letters across the front of the building proclaiming “Turner Schools” – and a nearby fountain standing sentinel beside a flagstone-gated entrance bearing the name “Falconhead.” The guarded gate leads into what turns out to be a scenic 4,000acre resort and retirement community of 400 homes, complete with private club, lodge, inn, five lakes, chapel, fire department, 4,200foot airstrip and historic eighteen-hole golf course. Neither Falconhead nor the Turner School would exist today were it not for public school teacher-turned-oilman Waco Turner, who, like Burneyville’s founding father, came with his family from 46 •••••• www.golfoklahoma.org
Waco Turner, right, with Byron Nelson and the untamed horse he gave Nelson after the 1954 Ardmore Open. Courtesy Barbara Sessions Mississippi to a farm near Burneyville. Waco Franklin Turner was born in Mississippi on Feb. 15, 1891. His family arrived in Indian Territory in 1897 and they settled in Love County, southwest of Ardmore. Turner’s father taught school to Chickasaw children. According to an article by Bill Hamilton, managing editor of the Daily Ardmoreite, “Turner worked his way through Southeastern State College at Durant by washing dishes for tuition. He found himself more interested in geology than any other subject and be-