When the professional golf tours were still to many just a game
rather than big business—this was less than 30 years ago—two Aussie mates of
mine, Jack Newton and Bob Shearer, were about as wild as they come. Their idea
of preparing for the final round of a tournament was to down a skinful of beer
to ensure themselves of a good night’s sleep.
So when Newton, who shot a course-record 65 in the third round of
the 1975 British Open at Carnoustie, got into an 18-hole playoff against Tom
Watson, edging out favorites Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller by a shot, it was
not surprising that the player known as “Newt the Beaut” or “Jolly Jack”
adjourned to the clubhouse bar. Since he had bogeyed three of the last four
holes, allowing Watson to catch him, there was some serious sorrow-drowning to
perform!
To my astonishment the then 27-year-old Shearer (or “Shears,” as
we knew him), who had finished down the field, enlisted my help to try to keep
Newton, then 25, from wiping himself out. Alas, that was like the blind leading
the blind, and we were all three largely in that condition when we at least
delivered Newt to his room and his patient wife, Jackie.
In the next afternoon’s playoff, the breeze off the North Sea was
little more than a mere zephyr. A sharp shower lasted three holes on the inward
half, but the rough was largely as benign as the weather.
Newton went ahead for the first and only time in the round when he
birdied the 12th hole. But he immediately lost it by missing the green at the
par-3 13th. Newton chipped up stone dead for his birdie at the 14th. But Watson
followed by chipping into the hole for his eagle. Newton “won” the long par-3
16th when Watson’s hooked tee shot cost him bogey. Two excellent pars at the
tricky 17th followed, but on 18 Newton hooked his 3-iron second shot into the
left front greenside bunker. Watson two-putted from 30 feet for his par four—and
victory: 71 to Newton’s 72.
Mark McCormack, in his 1976 annual The World of Professional
Golf, wrote: “Newton, too, would have made a good champion. He’s an Adonis
of a man, if somewhat paunchy for one in his mid-20s.” Talk about being damned
by faint praise!
In The Complete Book of Australian Golf, Terry Smith wrote
of Newton: “British golf writers often took a delight in recording that
Newton was tossing back beers like a rugby forward.” Actually he played fullback
and was a first-class cricketer. Of Newt’s buddy Shearer he wrote: “For a while
Bob burned the candle at both ends.” Shearer himself admits in the same
paragraph: “The worse you play, the more you drink. But it hardens you.”
Best friends married best friends: Jack and Jackie, and Bob and
Kathie. Not quite Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, but close. They met the
English fashion models at a tournament sponsored by Piccadilly cigarettes, where
the women, dressed in smart navy two-piece suits, were handing out the company
product. And the foursome hit the American scene in 1976.
Both only won once on the PGA Tour: Newton the 1978 Buick Open (he
also finished second to Seve Ballesteros at the 1980 Masters), Shearer in
Tallahassee in 1982. Worldwide, they combined for 23 victories. In addition,
Shearer won four events on the European Seniors Tour between 1998 and 2001, but
Newton’s playing career was cut tragically short on July 24, 1983.
During a trip from Newcastle to Sydney with friends for a soccer
match, Newton left the party’s twin-prop aircraft for a last-second pit stop. On
his return, not realizing the pilot had started the engines, he ran into a
propeller. Newton lost his right arm and eye, and suffered such serious
abdominal damage he was in critical condition for more than a week.
Only an immensely strong physical specimen could have survived
such injuries. Not only did Jack recover, he became the doyen of Australian
television’s golf commentators, and a very good one-armed golfer. The Newtons’
daughter, Kristie, is a professional golfer. Their son, Clint, plays Rugby
League for the Newcastle Knights.
My Aussie friends may have been underachievers but they were a hell of a lot
of fun. In the end, maybe that’s a better measure of success.
