Pair of N.B. golfers to raise money for prostate cancer care in 72-hour hole-in-one chase

Starting at 7 a.m. sharp Tuesday, golfers Colin MacKenzie and Brady Soucy will begin a long and grueling challenge.

The pair will lock themselves into one of the virtual golf simulators at the Under Par Golf Academy in Saint John, N.B., for 72 hours straight -- or until one of them hits a hole-in-one on the famous island green on the 17-hole of TPC Sawgrass.

“I like to think I can swing the golf club pretty well, but time will tell,” jokes MacKenzie, who owns Under Par, when asked how long he thinks the hole-in-one will take.

Dubbed the “Ace Escape for Prostate,” the event aims to raise money for prostate cancer care though the St. Josephs’ Regional Hospital Foundation. The three-day event will be lived streamed on the golf academy’s social media platforms and YouTube page.

The duo came up with the idea one night while practicing their putting at the academy.

“I think we are probably going to be taking around 5,000 golf shots,” says Soucy, who will co-host the festivities along with MacKenzie. “So hopefully one of them falls in the hole.”

The decision to donate to prostate cancer was an easy one for the pair, with both having lost family members to the disease.

“I lost my grandfather to prostate cancer,” Soucy says. “So it is going to be something that is really going to touch my heart.”

“We wanted to make sure that we kept it local and for a great cause,” MacKenzie says of deciding on who to raise money for through the event. “Men’s health does not get as much attention as it probably should, and we just wanted to create more acknowledgement towards it.”

Donations can be made though either the academy or foundation’s website. A $50 donation during the event by a resident will allow them to come into the simulator during the live stream and have three attempts of their own to sink the hole-in-one.

Laurie Flood, the executive director of St. Josephs’ Regional Hospital Foundation, says she was thrilled when MacKenzie and Soucy approached the foundation with the idea. She says any funds raised will support new equipment at the hospital’s Prostate Ultrasound Clinic, which services more than 400 men each year.

“Colin and Brady doing this event for us will highlight the need for support, and will also highlight the need for men to get checked,” Flood says. “One-in-eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in Canada.”

“It’s an honour that we get to lead this,” says MacKenzie. “This is only the first year and we hope to make it an annual thing. We are really going to push it forward so it keeps growing.”

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