Ken Miller impacted local, junior golf in Modesto. You can pay tribute Saturday
Whether you were a weekend hacker or a rising junior golfer over the last few decades, Ken Miller probably had an impact on your game.
A Beyer High graduate who went on to play at Fresno State, Mr. Miller created, owned and operated the former McHenry Golf Center, the once-premier golf practice facility that served thousands of Modesto golfers, from juniors, high school and junior college players with single-digit indexes to the majority of players hoping to break 100.
But it was his impact on junior golf that will be remembered most.
““He was all about the integrity, honesty and life lessons, “ said his wife, Wendy. “Golf taught you life lessons, and that is what he was trying to convey to Junior America’s Cup teams, high school teams and our kids.”
A celebration of life will be held for Mr. Miller, who died from a heart attack at age 56 in January, at Central Catholic High School in the Mark Gallo Fitness Center on Saturday at 10 a.m.
Mr. Miller left an impression on hundreds of junior golfers in the valley through his work with the Junior Golf Association of Northern California, a nonprofit organization forwarding the junior game since 1970.
He, along with Modesto’s Dana Ebster, captained teams representing the JGANC in the Junior America’s Cup. Together, they won it multiple times with such Northern California standouts as Modesto player Bryson DeChambeau, who Sunday won the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill and won the 2020 U.S. Open in September at Winged Foot Golf Club.
“(Mr. Miller) did a phenomenal job,” said Jon DeChambeau, Bryson’s father - who tried to recruit Mr. Miller to the University of Arizona. “(Mr. Miller) took Bryson and a bunch of other players from Northern California all around. That was part of his being. He believed in junior golf and the future of junior golf.
“In a time when golf courses were pushing kids off the course, he was trying to find a way to get them on.”
Mr. Miller was a JGANC board member and became president of the organization in 2005. Former JGANC players include DeChambeau, World Golf Hall of Fame member Julie Inkster, current PGA players Nick Watney and Maverick McNealy and current LPGA player Paula Creamer.
In 2011, Golf Digest magazine named the JGANC as the recipient of the Junior Development Award for its positive impact on juniors.
”It is a huge honor,” Mr. Miller told former Bee golf writer Ron Agostini at the time. “It is the icing on the cake for a phenomenal year.”
Mr. Miller had success on the course, too.
He won the JGANC Player of the Year in 1981, and added such honors as Northern California Golf Association junior champion, made the Junior America’s Cup and Hogan Cup teams and was ranked No. 3 in the United States. He also won the Sac-Joaquin Section title at Beyer in 1981.
He went on to Fresno State, where he was named the Pacific Coast Athletic Association Conference Freshman of the Year.
He had a couple of shots in the late 1980s on the Canadian, Australian and Golden State tours and was a one-time holder of the course record at Del Rio Country Club with a 63. He won his share of local and regional individual and two-man events.
Ebster, who was co-captain on those JGANC Junior America’s Cup teams, remembered him telling her about the importance of a knock-down wedge. She favored the high wedge shot.
She was sure her high wedge shot from 60 yards could beat his knockdown. So they bet.
“The first time, he hit his to six inches,” she said. “I wanted to bet again. The next time, he hit it into the hole.”
Also important to Mr. Miller was making an expensive game affordable and accessible to those who wanted to play. That was the impetus behind his work at providing a practice facility that went beyond 30 hitting spots and a bucket of balls.
A few decades ago, you could find Mr. Miller at the defunct Claratina Golf and Country Grill on Coffee Road, now site of Shelter Cove Community Church. That practice facility opened in the 1980s, and Miller eventually became the head pro there before it closed in 2004.
Two years later, he opened the McHenry Golf Center on McHenry Avenue with his wife.
It was more than a golf range. Golfers could hit a bucket into the evening, but could also practice their putting, chipping and pitching on three separate greens. The pitching area also had a sand trap.
It was named one of the Top 100 ranges in America.
It was there that you could find junior golf clinics on Saturday mornings, a number of local high school and Modesto Junior College golfers, along with special needs children, gaining access to hone their games.
Even DeChambeau, who used to play at Claratina before moving to Clovis as a seventh-grader, hit at McHenry.
“He did a ton for the local golfing community and the surrounding areas,” Ebster said.
