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Golfer's golf championship a stroke of good luck

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By PAUL CATALA pcatala@mediageneral.com

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 27, 2009

At one point, the chance of Bob Ewing getting back to the golf course wasn't good - and even the odds of living weren't all that great.

But eight years after what was a pleasant vacation-turned-mid-air-trauma and potentially lethal experience, Ewing not only got back to the game he loves, he even won the golf league championship.

In March, Ewing, a member of the Kings Point Golf Association, won the Kings Point Golf League Men's Championship, beating more than 100 players for the title. What's more, he was able to win the championship despite suffering a debilitating heart attack that left him six weeks in the hospital and permanently partially disabled.

A retired illustrator and graphic artist, Ewing, 62, who lives in Kings Point with his wife, Arline, has been called "amazing" by fellow golfers. They said his learning to play left handed from right, his natural side, is even more remarkable.

For Ewing, just being able to take to the course is a minor miracle.

"I finally got back to picking up a golf club and started hitting the ball. I was basically starting over again, I was right handed, now I'm left handed," he said. "But every year, I've been getting better and better."

Until Dec. 22, 2001, Ewing was an avid golfer and illustrator. It was then that he flying back from a vacation in St. Martin that he noticed he couldn't speak, or move. He notified a stewardess who told the pilot. A doctor who happened to be on board helped and recommended the plane make an emergency landing in Bermuda.

From a hospital in Bermuda, Ewing was flown to the University of Pennsylvania hospital in Pittsburgh, where he was stabilized after six weeks. He spent the next 11 months in rehabilitation in Cherry Hill, N.J.

"I was just out of it," Ewing said. "Whatever they did on the plane and everything, it fell into place and saved my life"

In 2004, Ewing and his wife decided to move to Sun City Center from Runnemede, N.J., for further rehabilitation and, of course, golf.

"That was like therapy," said Arline. "I thought it was very essential to keep him active and improving."

Besides golf, Ewing, a U.S. Marines veteran of Vietnam, has gotten back to art, having done most of the detail work on the mural in the Sun City Center Emergency Squad education building and he helped on a mural for the railroad engineers in the Kings Point clubhouse. His art was featured in the clubhouse for December 2008.

But it's been his uncanny ability and persistence to get back to competitive golf, playing handicapped against regular players - and winning - that has some golfers in admiration.

Jack Kubiak, the 2008 Kings Point men's club champion, said all the club members - even his opponent for the championship, Butch Gadd - are proud of his accomplishments over adversity, which include five holes-in-one since 2005.

"He's very quiet and humble. We try to get him to open up a bit," said Kubiak. "He's a gentleman and a great golfer. Switching hands and then becoming club champion, it's amazing."

Reporter Paul Catala can be reached at (813) 731-1970 or pcatala@mediageneral.com.

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