An artist with a club too

Bruce Newman has five "aces" in golf career

BY BILL HUNT
The Daily Gleaner

As a professional artist Bruce Newman paints with acrylics and draws with graphite.

But, as he demonstrated again on the executive course at Kingswood last Friday, he's something of an artist with a golf club in his hands too.

Newman used his trusty six iron to record a hole-in-one on the par-3, 172-yard seventh hole last week getting what he hopes will be a busy golf season off to a promising start. According to Golf Digest, the odds of a player making a hole-in-one in a single round are about 5,000-to-1. The odds of recording a hole-in-one on any particular swing are 1-in-33,000, according to the United States Golf Association.

Newman, however, skewers the stats. Defies the odds, if you will.

The latest ace, you see, was the fifth--count 'em fifth--of his career and his first in 15 years.

"I've been in a little bit of a slump," he chuckled.

Newman claims never to get too excited about all his one-shot deals.

"I'm a pretty low-key guy most of the time," he said. "I knew I had a pretty good shot. It was nice and square and I was perfectly in balance and it was all over the flag all the way. It hit and rolled and went into the hole. I thought it was maybe three or four feet away. I kind of looked away, thinking it was a good shot. I didn't actually see it go in. But the other guys started jumping around."

Newman was more excited about the fact that, playing 18 holes for the first time this season, he was two-under par for the round. Not bad for a guy who has gotten away from the game in recent years, playing five times last year, he said.

"Six times a year has been about the average the last few years," he said.

However, Newman has built, along with structures such as the Delta Hotel and Frederick Square complex in town in his former life as a real estate developer and construction project co-ordinator, a pretty impressive golf resume as well. A former pro--he was the assistant pro at Ottawa's Pineview Golf Club and Carleton Golf & Yacht Club for three seasons and won the Ottawa and District championship for assistant pros in 1971--he's captured numerous titles on the New Brunswick amateur circuit since regaining is amateur status in 1973.

In fact, he won the New Brunswick Amateur crown that very year. He won the Fredericton City and District championship three times, won both the Mactaquac and Fredericton Invitational events and won the Fredericton club championship three times.

"I was a member there for about 20 years," he said. "I used to play a lot of tournaments and that kind of thing. I haven't actually played much golf since 1990 or 1991."

While he didn't keep anything to commemorate his fistful of aces--not the ball, not the tee, not even the scorecard--he does have his memories.

"I don't have a single souvenir of any of them," he said. "I remember bits and pieces about all of them."

His 1989 ace came in a Fredericton club championship match. Playing the old fourth, he hit a six-iron into a pretty good breeze that day and dropped the ace on his way to a 69.

He had aced the old number two at Fredericton 11 years previous, in 1978. A sand wedge on the 109-yard hole disappeared into the cup.

It was in 1970, while giving a lesson in his role as assistant club pro in Ottawa that he turned the second ace. He wasn't even trying.

"I was giving a playing lesson to the guy," he recalled. "The wind was coming right to left really strong ... it was a hurricane that day. I told him 'What you want to do is hit it at the hole, and hit a big slice ... the wind will hold it straight.'"

In demonstrating what not to do--he deliberately hit an 80-yard hook way out to the right--it landed on the green, went straight sideways across the green and dropped into the hole.

His first one--you always remember your first--came when he was still a junior in 1968. It was an eight iron on the par-three, 145-yard 15th hole.

Newman admits he's a little blase about the whole thing.

"It's a lot of skill to get the ball going in the right direction and a lot of luck to have it go in the hole," he said. "I guess I've just been lucky five times."

He hopes to keep his luck going a little more often this year. He has a membership at the Lynx this season and "I hope to get back at it, because I'm a senior this year," he said.

While in the past he has fulfilled the golf custom of buying a round for everyone in the house after an ace, he got away scot-free this time.

"It was just kind of a casual round," he said, noting he played with a husband and wife whose last name he didn't catch, and simply got in his car and came home.

"I don't get too excited," he said. "I was happier about being two under."