MENOMONIE — Although sadly passing away in 2021, Pat Kell’s golf legacy at the University of Wisconsin-Stout lives on.
Stout recently celebrated the completion of the Pat Kell Golf Center, an indoor space which includes a range of technology and resources which benefit Blue Devil athletes in their offseason.
With a gift from Mike Kell in honor of his wife, the new center was built for the university out of Pat’s lifelong love for golf.
“She would be thrilled, tickled pink about this whole complex,” Mike Kell said in a press release from the university.
Within a space renovated out of two racquetball courts in the Recreation Complex on campus, the space includes two monitors which provide instant swing and ball data and pair to two golf course simulators. Additionally, a 35-foot by 12-foot space was fitted with both artificial turf for putting and a chipping area.
“Prior to the golf center being completed last year, our practice facility in the off season or winter season was a racquetball court… still white walls with ball scuffs on it and wood floor,” said Andrew Delong, men’s golf team coach and fold enterprise management program director. “We had one simulator bay in there that we had purchased and we had one 12-foot putting green. It gave us a spot to hit balls, but that was really all we could work on.”
Through the donation of the Kell family, he said they were able to create the space for student athletes and students majoring in golf enterprise management at UW-Stout.
“It has been an enormous upgrade to our practice facility compared to what we had last year,” said Delong.
But even alongside team and academic benefits, the center will also serve the university socially through its availability to the general student body, faculty, staff and community to reserve.
In regards to the golf teams at Stout, he said, “It gives them somewhere to practice where they are getting quality reps. Prior to the renovation, there were maybe one or two students in there at a time who could practice. Now we can easily have up to seven or eight players practicing on their time during the off-season.”
Furthermore, the space will also benefit athletes during practices when weather conditions are less than ideal outside.
For students in their educational programs on golf enterprise management, Delong said courses which focus on topics such as “club fitting and swing analysis” will benefit from a dedicated space like this. He said that it will help them to use technology to show what professionals at the top of their game are doing to measure their skills.
The new golf center comes at a perfect time as well, just as the Blue Devil’s finish their golf season this week ahead of the coming winter months. The golf season for Stout will return in the spring.
Keeping up practice in their off-season will give them an advantage, as Delong said he believes that the team will see improvement through usage of the space. Already their team has taken some notable wins, with the women’s team recently taking second place in their conference tournament, led by first-year player Julia Imai.
With the dedication to the renovated golf center, the first of many expected changes to their Recreation Complex; Mike Kell was quoted by the university giving his appreciation to UW-Stout.
“As both the director of golf for our athletics program and the program director for the golf enterprise management program, I am beyond grateful for the Kell family’s donation,” said Delong. “It really shows students both either golf athletically or come to study golf; it shows them that Stout is serious about golf. There are not a lot of universities you can go to and say, ‘We are going to teach a class in this facility,’ and that was made possible by the Kell family.”
With expectations for the future, Delong said, “I believe we have already seen a growth in the athletes that want to come here, both the number of athletes that want to come here and the quality of those golfers. I really think it has helped with the recent growth of the golf enterprise program, because it gets students and student athletes excited about golf… I hope other potential donors see that the impact is real. It can impact both the athletic side, where I fully believe we will see improvement on our team because of it, and it is also going to impact our academic side. With a public university especially, I think the value of that is almost immeasurable.”
