Watching Ken Duke challenge for The Players Championship on Sunday was exciting, if for no other reason than the former Henderson State golfer is one of the really good guys in the world of perspiring arts.
The day he was voted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, there was some concern because he was scheduled to be in a PGA tournament the same weekend as inductions and the ASHOF by-laws state that an inductee must be present.
Duke's longtime friend, Steve Eddington, an ASHOF board member, asked for a couple of minutes, grabbed his cellphone and when he came back, said: "He not only said he'll be there, he wouldn't miss it for anything."
Duke, who was born in Hope and raised in Arkadelphia, needed, and received, permission from the PGA Tour to play an early round on induction Friday.
He then borrowed a plane, landed in Little Rock at 6 p.m. and arrived at the dinner just in time for the group picture. The minute the banquet was finished, he and his wife, Michelle, were out the door -- shaking hands and posing for pictures every few steps -- and back on the plane and back to his job.
Duke has never been a headliner on the tour, getting his first PGA victory in 2013, but he has been a very consistent golfer who has made a really good living, earning more than $10 million on the PGA Tour and nearly $1 million on its satellite, the Web.com Tour.
Duke is never one to make excuses, but the fact is that as a youngster he had surgery to have a rod inserted in his back for scoliosis.
To still have earned millions of dollars as a professional athlete is fairly amazing in itself.
On Saturday, at The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., Duke made headlines all over the world.
On a day when the TPC Sawgrass course was so tough that players took three putts or more 149 times, Duke shot 65. The respect he received from fellow golfers was obvious.
"What course was Ken Duke playing today? Can anyone tell me? Was he playing across the road?" Jason Day said. "I mean it was just, to be able to shoot that score is better -- I think that should be the course record. It was just an absolute joke."
Day, who won the tournament, shot a 73 that day, and the average score was 75.8.
"I looked up on the board and saw Ken Duke shot 65, and I was like, 'What?' " Russell Knox added. "That's the best round of golf ever, probably. It was incredible how hard it was out there."
The compliments flowed, but Sunday the television announcers sounded like they had never heard of Duke, claiming this shot or that hole would be the biggest in his career.
Really?
Duke, 47, spent years after college playing tours in Canada, Asia and South America, honing his skills.
The final round of The Players Championship was not going to define him.
Not long after Duke, who attended Arkadelphia High School, finished college, it was not uncommon to get calls from Reddies fans, demanding to know why this newspaper didn't publish how their favorite golfer had done.
It was always explained that the results from those tours either didn't come in or were days late.
Duke, who is coming back from a broken wrist suffered last fall, pulled to within two shots of Day on Sunday and was in second place until a bogey on No. 15 dropped him into a tie for third.
The overnight sensation who paid 25 years of dues to the game he loves finished tied for third, five strokes behind the winner, Day, the No. 1 player in the world who went wire-to-wire for the victory.
Still, it was fun to watch and pull for an Arkansan who is a good guy and one who went the extra mile to be inducted into his home state's Sports Hall of Fame.
Sports on 05/17/2016