LIKE IT IS

Duke’s sudden success long time in making

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. (AP Photo/Fred Beckham)
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. (AP Photo/Fred Beckham)

It was a phone call that came in fairly regularly, about once a month, back in the late 1990s.

“How about some coverage of Ken Duke? Just because he’s playing golf in Canada doesn’t mean he’s not newsworthy.”

That is pretty close to verbatim, and it was suspected - although he always denied it - that the call was from Dave Worlock, Henderson State’s sports information director, who would disguise his voice.

Worlock went on to become a big wheel with the NCAA basketball tournament, and it took Duke 20 years to become an overnight sensation on the PGA Tour.

Outside of Arkansas, almost no one was familiar with Duke until Sunday.That’s when the 44-year-old native of Hope, who was raised in Arkadelphia, won the Travelers Championship in a two-hole playoff.

On a day when Bubba Watson almost destroyed his image by belittling his caddie, Duke stole the headlines as the oldest first-time winner of a PGA Tour event since 1995, doing so in his 187th professional start.

Forget for a moment the calm, cool and collected way he forged his name into the PGA books and think about what he said when asked about the two-year exemption he earned on the PGA Tour.

“It’s really huge,” he said. “I don’t know how long I can play. I have scoliosis. I have a rod in my back. I didn’t know if I can play this long. I’m lucky, very lucky.”

In 1982, 12 years before he began playing golf professionally, Duke was sent to Arkansas Children’s Hospital after a school nurse suspected he might have scoliosis. It was determined that he did, and he was advised to wear a back brace 23 hours a day.

He did, but as he continued to grow so did the curvature in his spine. Two years later, it was determined it could be life-threatening. The pressure on his heart and lungs could be critical.

A 16-inch metal rod was attached to his spine, and he went back into a brace, this one running from his neck to his hips. He wore it 23 hours a day for four long months.

Yet, he was already back in school, and two years later he won the state high school overall golf tournament.

Then it was on to an All-American career at Henderson State and later a nomadic pro career that started in Canada for three years and, according to Duke, included “mini tours, Asian Tour, South American Tour, all of them.”

Twice he used the Nationwide Tour to earn his PGA Tour card.

Not once has he ever complained. Not about his back.Not about pain. Not about the tens of thousands of miles on the hard road he traveled to get to Cromwell, Conn., where he showed courage hole after hole throughout the Travelers Championship.

And Duke was making money. He’s earned more than $7 million as a golfer, including more than $4 million in 2007 and 2008 when he had five top-10 finishes each year.

Still, Sunday had to feel a little like he was hitting a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth to win the World Series.

Duke entered last week’s event having earned about $500,000 this season, but he had only one top-10 finish on tour and had missed 10 cuts in 18 starts.

Sunday’s victory catapulted him into headlines around the world and earned him a payout of nearly $1.1 million.

For all his travels and 187 PGA starts, Duke has played in the U.S. Open only twice, the British Open championship once, the PGA Championship four times and the Masters once, where he finished tied for 35th in 2009.

He is now assured of keeping his playing privileges through the 2015 season and has invitations to this year’s PGA Championship and next year’s Masters.

He earned it through hard work and perseverance.

Sports, Pages 19 on 06/26/2013

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