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Tributes are pouring in from people of all walks of life and from across the globe following the passing overnight of Jack Newton OAM.
In a statement released by the Newton family, it was confirmed that Jack passed away overnight due to health complications, his health deteriorating in recent years with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
Current and former Tour players such as Greg Chalmers, Rod Pampling, James Nitties and Aron Price all took to Twitter to express their sympathies while others in the media, entertainment, sport, business and the disability sector also paid tribute.
Blessed in equal measures with talent, competitiveness and sheer bloody-mindedness, Newton rose to the highest levels in professional golf.
He won throughout the world and was the 1979 Australian Open champion at Metropolitan Golf Club in Melbourne, finishing one stroke clear of Graham Marsh and Greg Norman.
An accident involving an aeroplane propeller very nearly took Newton’s life at age 33, his playing career coming to an end when he lost his right arm as a result.
Yet it was his contribution to the broader Australian golf community that has been remembered by those who he influenced.
Newton established the Jack Newton Junior Golf Foundation in 1986, providing the platform from which many professional careers were launched yet which is most renowned for the thousands of young lives it has impacted through golf.
Given his blue-collar upbringing in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, Newton became an important voice too in the television commentary booth, pulling no punches and taking even casual golf fans into the heat of the battle.
