Cameron Indoor Stadium, Wallace Wade Stadium, and now the Karcher-Ingram Golf Center.
Maybe the final facility does not belong on the same list as the home of "Coach K Court" or the only stadium outside of Pasadena to host the Rose Bowl, but it will be one of the tools responsible for keeping the Duke golf programs among the best in the nation.
The $3 million facility, located at the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club, was completed earlier this fall and was officially dedicated Nov. 18.
"I couldn't be more proud tonight than to dedicate this building," Athletic Director Joe Alleva said at the ceremony. "This gives us the opportunity to do one of the things that I've always said we need to do and that is to keep the programs good that are good at Duke University."
The two-story, 5,500-square-foot facility has many attributes that will benefit the current golf teams, including an indoor putting green and an extensive academic center. It also houses locker rooms for each squad, a club repair room and a training room.
The most important impact, however, of the facility will be its positive influence on recruiting, both men's coach Rod Myers and women's coach Dan Brooks said.
"It is a real positive for attracting new players," Brooks said. "It is just fantastic. It is more and better than we could have imagined."
In addition to the building, the athletic department is also nearing completion on a $1 million short-game practice facility also located at the Washington Duke Inn, which both players and coaches have said will have a more direct impact on lowering golf scores and improving the teams. This outdoor facility will include full-swing and short-game areas with practice bunkers and target greens. It will also have state-of-the-art video equipment to help players improve all aspects of their swings, Myers said.
Beyond the use of the building and the practice facility, however, Myers said he believes the building has an important psychological impact for both current and future Blue Devils.
"The primary thing it says is that Duke alumni and the athletic department are really behind the Duke programs," Myers said. "I think that's the first thing it says to any young man or lady wondering if Duke is committed to its golf programs. It shows that Duke has and will continue to have a fine tradition in golf."
Even before the building was completed, both Myers and Brooks had been using the plans as a recruiting tool to bring in some of their current players.
Both coaches also stressed the importance of selling all aspects of the Duke program to high school golfers. And one of the main aspects both stress is the University's academic prestige.
"I know if I was an incoming freshman looking at schools, I'd think that Duke now has the best facilities in the country and, aside from that, we are ranked so well academically," women's team senior captain Liz Janangelo said. "So it is a pretty good combination."
Sophomore Skip Murphy noted a sentiment that his coach hopes many prospective Blue Devils will have in the years to come.
"You're not going to find this anywhere else in the world," Murphy said. "I visited the Georgia facility. They're No. 1 in the country and it's nothing anywhere near this."
Patrick Byrnes contributed to this story.
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