Sportsman of the Year Duke pumped up after crowning achievement

Ken Duke raises the trophy after winning the Travelers Championship golf tournament in Cromwell, Conn., Sunday, June 23, 2013. Duke won the tournament with a birdie on the second playoff hole.
Ken Duke raises the trophy after winning the Travelers Championship golf tournament in Cromwell, Conn., Sunday, June 23, 2013. Duke won the tournament with a birdie on the second playoff hole.

It was a regal year for the state’s Duke of golf.

Ken Duke’s honors in 2013 culminated when he was inducted into the Arkansas State Golf Association’s Hall of Fame on Oct. 24 before his election to the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame just last week. His crowning achievement of 2013, though, came on June 23 when he won the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Conn., a victory that came in a two-hole playoff to give Duke, 44, who was born in Hope and raised in Arkadelphia, his first PGA Tour title in 187 starts.

It was Duke’s fist pumper of a performance that Sunday in June - one that was unexpected, unrestrained, unyielding - that has lifted the former Henderson State golfer to become the 2013 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Sportsman of the Year.

The Travelers was played a week after the U.S. Open at Merion and a week before the AT&T National hosted by Tiger Woods. But the field, which featured Justin Rose fresh off his U.S. Open championship and 2012 Masters champion Bubba Watson, wasn’t weak by any means. In fact, Watson shared the lead with two others going into the final round, and was alone at the top at 13 under at one point before a triple-bogey meltdown on the 16th hole knocked him out of contention.

Watson’s misfortune didn’t exactly mean a red carpet was rolled out for Duke’s victory coronation either. Chris Stroud, who was playing just behind, birdied two of his last four holes, including the 18th when he chipped in from 50 feet to force a playoff with Duke.

Each made par on the first playoff hole, but Duke stuck a sand wedge 2½ feet on his second shot and made the short birdie putt, while Stroud, 31, made par. That gave Duke, who has a 16-inch metal rod attached to his spine after being diagnosed with scoliosis as a teenager, his first PGA Tour victory.

“I am a slow starter and sometimes I finish well. It happened that day,” Duke said. “People remember Bubba and the way he played Sunday. He could have pulled ahead Saturday, but he didn’t. Anytime you win, you got to have luck and be able to make some putts and birdies.”

Duke was 8 under, two shots off the lead, coming into the final round after a bogey-free 5-under 65 the day before. He made a birdie on No. 2 before some good luck struck, then the birdies. His second shot at the par-4 10th went left, struck a tree and rebounded on the green 6 feet from the hole where he made the birdie putt to get to 10 under.

Another birdie at the 11th inched him further up the leaderboard. He sensed he was getting closer to that elusive Tour victory on the 13th when his 45-foot birdie putt finally decided to move left at the very end before barely falling into the right side of the cup to reach 12 under.

“I felt everything was going my way,” Duke said. “I have seen things go my opponents way, so I thought maybe it was my time to have something good go my way.”

Duke sandwiched another birdie at the 15th with his first bogey in 32 holes at the 14th. He settled for pars on the 16th and 17th before things got dicey. Duke walked to the 18th tee as the tournament leader after Watson’s triple-bogey and his drive on the par-4, 444-yard 18th clipped a tree and sailed right, leaving him in the rough 190 yards from the green. He pulled off another clutch shot as his 8 iron landed 30 yards short, rolled down the fairway along the left side and narrowly missed running through to the rough. The shot finally landed just a few paces off the green for Duke, who drew raves from the CBS announcing crew for keeping himself together after his errant tee shot.

Duke’s up-and-down two-putt for par left him the leader in the clubhouse at 12 under. He then waited,then watched, as Stroud, who he had played in past mini-tour events and again just 20 days previously in a U.S. Open qualifier in Columbus, Ohio, holed his chip shot at the 18th to force the playoff.

“I didn’t expect him to make it, obviously, but he did what he had to do,” Duke said. “There’s one guy that hits shots like that [Tiger Woods] and he wasn’t there. I knew then that I felt like I still had a lot of work to do.”

The first playoff hole, the 18th, found Duke in trouble when his tee shot went through a bunker and settled nicely in the rough where he maneuvered his way for par. Stroud, who out drove Duke by more than 100 yards, dropped his approach in a green side bunker and matched Duke’s par when he got up and down to equal Duke’s 4.

Again, the two would play the 18th. On the tee box, Duke said he was just trying to settle himself down enough to get a drive in the fairway. That he did. Whereas he was right and 190 yards out playing the hole in regulation, this one was down the middle and long, leaving him 118 yards from the hole and setting the wheels in motion for the PGA Tour victory that had eluded him for 181 starts.

“I knew if I hit it right it would leave a sand wedge or pitching wedge,” he said. “It was 102 to get over the bunker and the greens were taking a big bounce. I know I can hit a full sand wedge 107. It took a bounce like it was supposed to, and honestly, when it took the bounce I thought it had a chance to go in.”

Hoping for a mere tap-in when he arrived at the hole, Duke’s near-perfect shot had still settled less than a yard away. It wasn’t Duke’s championship just yet. Stroud was on in two himself and was staring at an 18-foot birdie putt that leaked right at the end to set the stage for Duke’s crowning achievement. He knocked in his short birdie putt, almost identical to the putt he made to save par at 18 in regulation, and became the fourth first-time champion at the Traveler in as many years, thus earning a $1.089 million payday and also securing his second trip to the Masters in April.

“Winning on the PGA Tour is something on the bucket list of things to accomplish,” said Duke, the 2006 Nationwide Tour Player of the Year. “The check was nice, too. It’s job security for two or three years. I was able to get a taste of Augusta in 2009 and I want to get back there.”

It might have taken 187 starts for Duke to finally taste victory, but he was prepared for the celebration. Duke has always carried a bottle of Coca-Cola in his bag, ready to shake it up and spray it all over if he ever won.

“Probably been drinking a little too many,” Duke said at the time. “So my trainer has been on me about cutting them out.

“My caddie and I joked around the last few years, if I ever win, I’m going to have a bottle of Coke or a can of Coke and take a drink out of it because we’re big NASCAR fans and you see that on NASCAR.”

In return, Duke received a care package from Coca-Cola the next week, after earning a spot in the AT&T National.

Duke became the 17th player to win his first PGA Tour title in Connecticut. The first to do it was Duke’s swing teacher Bob Toski, who won the Insurance City Open (which later became the Hartford Open) in 1953. Duke had spent time with Toski, the Tour’s leading money winner in 1954, just a week before the Travelers.

“He’s just a special person, a special teacher,” Duke said of Toski, 87, who presented Duke at this fall’s ASGA Hall of Fame induction ceremony. “It again has been a tough road, but I have had a lot of support through the years from my wife, my daughters and my parents. It truly has been an incredible journey.”

Duke, a 1999 inductee into the Henderson State Hall of Fame, finished the 2013 PGA season 50th on the money list with more than $1.7 million in earnings, and he has already gotten a jump on 2014 after playing two tournaments in the Tour’s new wraparound schedule. He finished tied for 15th in October at the Shriners Hospital for Children Open in Las Vegas and is preparing to head to Hawaii for the Hyundai Tournament of Champions which begins Jan. 3. Duke is slated for enshrinement in the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame on Feb. 28.

“2013 has been amazing and I am grateful for the people that recognized me,” said Duke, who has earned more than $8.6 million in 198 PGA Tour starts, a run that started in 2004 but has been interrupted by four seasons on the PGA’s feeder tour, now known as the Web.com Tour. “To be inducted into the ASGA Hall of Fame, and then just get the call to join the Arkansas Hall of Fame is a tremendous feeling. Both are just awesome.

“When you count winning the Travelers and getting that first win on the PGA Tour, I’ve got to say, it will be hard to top this past year.”

Maiden victories

Ken Duke’s victory in the 2013 Travelers Championship made him the oldest winner on the PGA Tour since Ed Dougherty won the Sanderson Farms Championship in 1995. The Travelers has produced 17 first-time PGA Tour winners, including Duke, since 1953 when Duke’s swing teacher, Bob Toski, won the event. Duke became the fourth consecutive first-time winner and the sixth in eight years at the Travelers.

YEAR WINNER

2013 Ken Duke

2012 Mark Leishman

2011 Fredrik Jacobson

2010 Bubba Watson

2007 Hunter Mahan

2006 J.J. Henry

Ken Duke at a glance

AGE 44 BORN Hope COLLEGE Henderson State RESIDES Palm City, Fla.

FAMILY Wife, Michelle; daughters Ashleigh, 10, and Lauren 8.

Sports, Pages 21 on 12/25/2013

Upcoming Events