Tour Edge staff player Ken Duke won the Shaw Charity Classic Sunday after an emotional birdie on the last hole, giving him his first trophy in his 100th career start on the PGA Champions Tour.
Duke outlasted fellow Tour Edge staff player Tim Petrovic, both one-time PGA TOUR winners seeking their first victories on the 50-and-over tour.
The eventual winner started the round two shots back of Petrovic and they entered the 18th hole tied at 13-under-par.
Duke had several clutch shots coming down the stretch to keep him in the hunt, but none more clutch than his third on the Par-5 18th that landed to 5-feet and set up the winning putt.
He ended up with a 4-under 66 that netted him $360,000 in prize money.
“I’ve always dreamed about this,” said Duke. “This is where I started my professional career, up here in Canada, and I always thought that I’d win up here. Here we are finally doing it.”
The 54-year-old Duke played seven seasons on the Canadian Tour from 1996 to 2002.
Duke has been a part of the Tour Edge brand since he started playing Exotics clubs starting in 2020 when he started choosing to play their driver, fairway metals, hybrids and utility irons based on the performance he was experiencing with the clubs. He was officially added to the Tour Edge professional staff the next season.
Here’s what he had in play for the momentous breakthrough victory Sunday:
- Exotics 9.5-degree E722 Driver
- Exotics 15-degree C723 Fairway Metal
- Exotics 18-degree C723 Fairway Metal
- Exotics 21-degree C723 Hybrid
- 4-PW Exotics Pro 723 Forged Irons
“Watching Ken and Tim battle it out for their first career wins out here was special for us as a company,” said Tour Edge President David Glod. “They have both been a part of the Tour Edge family for some time now. We are so happy for Ken, he is a pro’s pro, and one of nicest guys you’ll ever be around. I think you saw what he was made of today with all the emotion he had with his victory. He’s a clutch player with a heart of gold.”
Duke’s victory gives Tour Edge staff players their third victory in the last five events played on the tour, including two major championships with Bernhard Langer’s historic win at the U.S. Senior Open and Alex Cejka’s rain-soaked victory at the Senior Open Championship.
He jumped up 20 spots to No. 21 in the season-long Charles Schwab Cup standings with the victory.
“For three different Tour Edge staff players to have won three of the past five events this year on PGA TOUR Champions is exactly what we do this for,” said Glod. “To see all the emotion and grit behind these wins, to be able help these players achieve their goals and dreams, that is why we have invested so much time and energy into this tour.”
Currently, seven players ranked in the Top 40 of the Schwab Cup standings are playing Tour Edge equipment, including three ranked in the Top 10.
The win is the 25th for Tour Edge clubs in play since the company started working full-time with Champions tour players in 2018. The company has seen more than 4,000 clubs played by over 165 different PGA Tour professionals on the three PGA Tours over the last five seasons.
With the victory this week, the brand has been on a meteoric rise with 25 victories and 39 runner-up finishes on PGA TOUR Champions since they started servicing the tour full-time.
That gives Exotics clubs 64 combined 1st place and runner-up finishes in the last 132 Champions events played (48% of all Champions events in that time span).
