ARKADELPHIA -- He may not be playing in the current FedEx Cup playoffs, but even if he had, it would have been difficult to pull PGA Tour veteran Ken Duke away from the Henderson State campus Saturday.
Duke, joined by his family, friends, the Reddies golf teams and about 100 others, was on hand on a humid morning for the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Ken Duke Golf Center, a state-of-the-art facility located just off Arkansas 7 upon entering the Henderson State campus. Duke later conducted the coin toss before the Reddies' football game against Northwestern Oklahoma State where he and his family were honored at halftime.
"It's not a tough question where I would rather be today," said Duke, who has won more than $10 million on the PGA Tour since making his debut in 1996. "This is a special day and it means so much to me. I put this on the calendar a long time ago."
Duke, 47, a 1992 HSU graduate, said he often wondered upon joining the PGA Tour how he could repay in some way the institution where he was a four-time All-Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference champion and an NAIA All-American. Step in former Reddies teammates James Barnes and Robbie Estes, friend Brandon Huffman and others who helped lead the fundraising efforts in building the 6,500-square-foot, $1 million facility.
"I often dreamed of having this building built," said Duke, who won the 2013 Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Conn., then turned around and wrote a check for $25,000 to the tournament's charities. "I thought the chances for it were small, but we got a few breaks along the way.
"I don't know what [the fundraisers] anted up to do this. I don't want to know. It's all amazing."
The facility includes classrooms, coaches offices, a putting green, chipping areas, TrackMan Golf Simulators, player cabinets to store clubs and large trophy cases in the lobby featuring murals of Duke and former Henderson State Coach Doyle Wallace, who led the Reddies from 1980-1991. An inductee into the Reddie Hall of Honor and Arkansas Golf and Sports Halls of Fame, Duke also supplied equipment for the facility including clubs and Titleist golf balls.
"This is one of those goosebump kind of days," Henderson State Athletic Director Shawn Jones said in his opening remarks in front of the facility, which sits directly across the highway from Ouachita Baptist's Cliff Harris Stadium. "Ken Duke never forgot where he came from. He never was, 'This is what I want.' It was, 'What do you need?' "
Current Henderson State Coach Forrest Schultz played for the Reddies in 2007-2010 and is in his fourth year leading the program. The Henderson men have won three consecutive Great American Conference titles, while the Reddies women won the conference title in 2014 and were runners-up the past two years. Both teams have been to the NCAA Division II Regionals four consecutive years.
"When I played here, I never dreamed of a facility like this," said Schultz, a former Hot Springs Country Club assistant professional. "I had this vision of all these things I wanted to do when I took over the program. Now that we have this facility, I have to say it's all pretty surreal right now."
Fifth-year senior Drew Greenwood of Hot Springs, freshman Taylor Loeb of Maumelle and their HSU teammates started reaping the benefits of the center even before Saturday's grand opening.
"The full chipping and putting areas, plus the sides of rough are really good for practice," Greenwood said. "What I really like is we have places to hang our banners and display our trophies. This just makes us want to win more."
Loeb, a former Mount St. Mary standout, said the facility played an important factor when she signed with the Reddies.
"This is like my second home," she said. "It's amazing that I can just come in here and work on my game whenever I want. It has to be one of the best facilities in Division II, if not the country."
Duke, who was born in Hope and grew up in Arkadelphia where he was diagnosed with scoliosis when he was in the seventh grade, is rehabbing from recent knee surgery but is preparing for the start of the PGA Tour's wrap-around season which starts Oct. 13 at the Safeway Open in Napa, Calif. For this weekend, he was content to get back to his roots.
"This isn't about me. It's about Henderson State and Henderson State athletics," Duke said.
Sports on 09/18/2016