BIG RAPIDS, Mich. — The Michigan Golf Hall of Fame grew to 145 members on Sunday, welcoming a former LPGA Tour player and a PGA professional whose second career as a swing coach has shaped a generation of the state’s top juniors.
Allison Duncan, who played as Allison Fouch, and Gary Robinson were enshrined in a ceremony at Katke Golf Club on the Ferris State campus. The hall’s portraits, plaques and memorabilia are kept there, inside the Ken Janke Sr. Golf Learning Center.
Duncan, 45, of Grand Rapids, starred at East Grand Rapids High School and then at Michigan State, where she won three tournaments, earned All-Big Ten honors three times and helped the Spartans to a Big Ten title in 2002. That same year the U.S. squad she played on won the Women’s World University Golf Championship, and she finished runner-up in the individual standings.
She spent nine years as a professional. After two wins and 10 top-10 finishes on the Symetra Tour in 2007, she moved to the LPGA Tour for six seasons, reaching the top 50 in 2008 with a career-best tie for second. She also won the 2009 Michigan Women’s Open and her fellow tour players elected her to a three-year term on the LPGA board.
Robinson, 76, grew up in Plymouth and earned NAIA All-America honors while at Eastern Michigan before turning pro. His 1986 title at the state PGA section’s professional championship headlines a playing resume that also includes two U.S. Opens and five Buick Opens. His club jobs included stops at Tam O’Shanter in West Bloomfield and Green Ridge Country Club in Grand Rapids before a 12-year run as head pro at Arbor Hills Country Club in Jackson.
The Michigan PGA picked Robinson as its top teacher in 2002, and he now coaches at the Foundation Golf Center in Coldwater. His best-known pupil, longtime PGA Tour player Brian Stuard, began working with him as a boy and attended the ceremony.
The hall is run by a committee funded since 1996 through the nonprofit Michigan Golf Foundation. Its members include Walter Hagen, Dan Pohl, Meg Mallon and Kelly Robbins.
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