Club marshal suffers cardiac arrest on golf course, dies

Richard Dunn

It was a somber time Thursday at Newport Beach Country Club as one of

the club’s employees, marshal Terry Ireland, suffered a cardiac

arrest on the golf course while repairing divots and died before the

7:15 a.m. Toshiba Senior Classic Pro-Am shotgun start.

Ireland, a club employee for 10 years and a volunteer at the

Toshiba Senior Classic as the course repair chairman, was on the

third hole in a golf cart with fellow volunteer Jerry Mack. True to

form, Ireland had arrived at the club at 3:30 a.m. to carry out his

daily duties for the tournament.

Mack tried to revive Ireland with a defibrillator after he was

carted back to the clubhouse area, to no avail. Two club members also

tried CPR, including a doctor who was playing in the pro-am, Newport

Beach Country Club head golf pro Paul Hahn said.

Ireland was taken to Hoag Hospital. He arrived at 6:48 a.m. and

was pronounced dead at 7:07 a.m.

Ireland, a Newport Beach resident, was 72.

For Toshiba Senior Classic officials, it came on the heels of

another death of a tournament volunteer -- Gary Knoche of Costa Mesa.

Knoche, who died Sunday after an extended illness, had been for

many years a scorers chairman along with his wife, Karen. Knoche, who

was 65, was the tournament’s greenside reporters chairman through

2001. He was a member at Newport Beach Country Club.

“We are extremely saddened about the recent losses of Terry

Ireland and Gary Knoche,” Toshiba Senior Classic Co-Chairman Jake

Rohrer said. “They were both vital to the success of this tournament.

They really represented the generous spirit of this community that

has made the Toshiba Senior Classic such a triumph each year.

“They were great friends of this tournament and of our charity,

Hoag Hospital,” Rohrer said. “On behalf of the Toshiba Senior Classic

and the more than 900 volunteers who served with Terry and Gary, we

offer our deepest sympathies to their families.”

Knoche is survived by his wife and two daughters, Garnet Thompson

and Gretchen Davison. Funeral services are today at Our Lady Queen of

Angels Church in Corona del Mar at 11 a.m.

Ireland’s death was sudden, and his former colleagues saluted him.

“This is Terry in a nutshell, right here,” Newport Beach Country

Club assistant pro Richard Ortega said, while grabbing a plastic sack

and pulling out a red cap with several pins and the words: First to

Fight.

“He was as proud as proud could be of that hat,” Newport Beach

Country Club assistant golf pro Bruce Hooper added. “He would always

drive around with a U.S. flag and Marine Corps flag [on the golf

cart], along with his divot seed.”

“We used to say he was the First to Fill, because he would fill

those divots,” Ortega quipped.

Ortega, looking for a silver lining on an extremely sad day, said

his former colleague, whose nickname was “Bones,” is smiling in

heaven.

Ireland is survived by his wife, Dee, two sons, Michael and John,

a stepson, Robert Ercer, and two stepdaughters, Brenda Motsch and

Carol Kringle.