Athletics & Recreation

DU celebrates Highlands Ranch Golf Club gift

DU is the new owner of the Highlands Ranch Golf Club. Photo courtesy of DU Athletics

The University of Denver Division of Athletics and Recreation honored the late Ron Moore and his family’s gift of the Highlands Ranch Golf Club in a grand celebration held at the club on Thursday afternoon.

Highlands Ranch Golf Club, a semi-private facility that was named the official home of the DU men’s and women’s golf teams on Aug. 24, is the second largest gift to athletics in University history. The Highlands Ranch Golf Club gift, with a book value of $5.2 million, will be matched dollar-for dollar with funds allocated as part of the University’s ASCEND campaign in order to provide tuition scholarship endowments for men’s and women’s golf student-athletes.

Chancellor Robert Coombe, Chancellor Emeritus Daniel Ritchie and Moore’s daughter, Sandy Loeffler, spoke during the celebration, and Peg Bradley-Doppes, vice chancellor for athletics and recreation, presented the Moore family with an engraved Waterford crystal bowl.

“We are here to celebrate more than this transformational gift,” Coombe said. “We are here to celebrate the legacy of the Moore family at the University of Denver and, of course, the legacy of Ron Moore, perhaps the quintessential Pioneer at DU. This gift will change the lives of our students, now, tomorrow, next week and for years and generations to come.”

Moore was born in Grand Island, Neb., and earned a golf scholarship to the University of Denver in 1951. Inducted into the University of Denver Athletic Hall of Fame in 2002, Moore (BS ’54) was a member of two Skyline Conference Championship teams and advanced to the NCAA tournament in 1952, ’53 and ’54. Moore credited his time on the Pioneers golf team from 1951–54 as one of the turning points in his life.

“Ron had a vision of the University of Denver having its own golf course, and that vision is coming true,” Ritchie said.

Inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 1987, Moore had golf titles spanning more than 30 years, starting in 1949 when he won the Central Nebraska Amateur Championship. In 1950 he won the Nebraska High School Championship and went on to win the Sacramento City Amateur in 1957, the Colorado Stroke Play Championship in 1967, the Broadmoor Men’s Invitational in 1970, the Colorado Match Play Championship in 1981, and the Phoenix Country Club Men’s Amateur Invitational in 1983. He also won the Colorado Open Amateur Championship in 1966 and 1968.

In 1985 Moore was named general chairman of the PGA Championship at Cherry Hills Country Club. He served as the vice chairman of the U.S. Open in 1970.

A member of the University of Denver Board of Trustees from 1986 until his passing in 2003, Moore served as chairman of the board’s investment committee and gave time and financial donations to numerous factions of the University.

“Highlands Ranch is a beautiful facility that our men’s and women’s golf programs are honored to call home,” Bradley-Doppes said. “Student-athletes and coaches both today and tomorrow will benefit from Ron Moore’s dream and his family’s inspiring gesture.”

A tribute to Moore’s legacy can be found on the concourse of the Daniel L. Ritchie Center.

 

 

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