Australia’s Greatest Golfer: Jack Newton v Rod Pampling

One had his best years on the golf course cruelly cut short; the other seems to get better with age.

Jack Newton and Rod Pampling encapsulate so much of what makes Australian golf so great which makes their match-up in our search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer so compelling.

Newton was a talented teen with the confidence to take on all comers while Pampling’s roots were in the grass of Caboolture Golf Club near the Sunshine Coast as an apprentice greenkeeper before embarking on a PGA of Australia Traineeship.

The son of accomplished golfers, Newton showed promise in both rugby league and cricket before racking up numerous schoolboy golf titles.

He turned professional in 1970 and the following year headed for Europe, by 1972 a European Tour winner after victory at the Dutch Open, a feat he followed up just six days later with his second victory at the Benson and Hedges Festival.

Three years later Newton finished tied at the top with Tom Watson after 72 holes of The Open Championship at Carnoustie and would fall just one shot shy in the next day’s 18-hole playoff.

A winner on the PGA TOUR in 1978, Newton got hot in the summer of 1979, winning the NSW Open and Australian Open in quick succession, victories that propelled him to the top of the Australasian Tour Order of Merit by season’s end.

The proud Novocastrian carried that form into 1980 where he was second to Seve Ballesteros at The Masters, tied for 32nd at the US Open, tied for 10th at The Open Championship and top-20 at the US PGA Championship.

Early in 1983 Newton lost the Western Australian Open to Terry Gale in a playoff and in July his playing career tragically came to an end when he walked into an airplane propeller and lost his right arm and eye, transferring his renowned tenaciousness into influencing Australian golf in innumerable ways over the past 35 years.

Pampling was a teenager in the midst of a love-hate relationship with golf at the time of Newton’s accident but was soon lured to pursue playing the game professionally.

As he trainee at Bribie Island Golf Club he pocketed cash playing against other pros and then six months shy of his 30th birthday claimed his first professional title, the 1999 Canon Challenge at Terrey Hills where he finished three strokes clear of runner-up Geoff Ogilvy.

In July that year Pampling came to prominence when he led The Open Championship after the opening round at Carnoustie Golf Links played in brutally difficult conditions. The next day he would suffer the ignominy of shooting 86 and missing the cut.

Throughout his career Pampling has shown an ability to go super-low on his day, racking up 31 points in the modified Stableford format to win his first PGA TOUR title at the 2004 The International and shooting 60 in the opening round of the 2016 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.

Pampling only gained entry to that tournament in Las Vegas due to a clerical error but capitalised the best way possible, sinking a birdie putt from 32 feet at the final hole to beat Brooks Koepka by two strokes and guarantee PGA TOUR status right up until his 50th birthday last September.

Pampling’s biggest victory on home soil was his playoff triumph at the 2008 Australian Masters while a course record final round of 61 at The Australian propelled the Queenslander into a tie for fourth at the 2015 Australian Open.

Match 31 | @CocaColaAmatil Australia’s Greatest Golfer?️

Follow @PGAofAustralia & https://t.co/8tUxMHCgi8 to vote as we give you the chance to vote for our best Aussie in a decorated class of 64 greats.
— PGA of Australia (@PGAofAustralia) May 4, 2020