POST GAME Duke’s Junior Golf Scholarship Has Its Roots in Personal Story
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he saying goes, “find a job doing something you love to do, and you’ll never work another day in your life.” It’s an adage John Moscrip — founder of the Duke’s Junior Golf Scholarship — has taken to heart. Of course, if you had told a 15-year-old Moscrip exactly what it was that he’d be doing at age 41 — an owner and Chief Operating Officer of Duke’s Chowder House — he’d likely have rolled his eyes and laughed you out of the room. Duke’s was dad’s labor of love, not John’s — sure, he’d spent hours in the Duke’s restaurants watching his father work, but the protege had zero interest in running the family business. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do back then, but I definitely wanted to find and create my own path,” he says. For most of John Moscrip’s first 25 years, that path looked to be professional golf. After first picking up the clubs at the age of seven — (“I’d go out with my dad and we’d get maybe halfway down the second hole, and I’d just say, ‘O.K., that’s enough, I’m done,’ and he’d just walk off with me. He was great, he never pressured me to do or be anything I didn’t want for myself.”) — Moscrip quickly developed into one of the state’s top junior players. By age 11, he started competing in local tournaments and competed well against his older junior peers at Overlake Golf & Country Club. By age 14, he was dominating local and district tournaments, and sweeping his high-school matches. A two-time conference and district champion at Bellevue High School, Moscrip once carded a 63 in the district finals his sophomore year during a wind and rainstorm, catching the eye of college coaches nationwide. Soon, he was soon traveling to — and excelling in — tournaments against top competition in Florida, Michigan and Texas. When that success continued at the University of Washington — where he earned four varsity letters, won one tournament and led the Huskies in scoring average in 1997 — absolutely no one was surprised. After graduating, Moscrip scraped together enough money with the help of some local investors to head out on the professional tours and try to make a career in golf. And while his game matched up reasonably well with the golfers he played against over two years on various mini Tours across the U.S., he quickly realized that they had something he didn’t. “There was one guy I remember, who would drive from tournament to tournament in South Dakota in his Winnebago,” he says. “He was 38, and he had his family with him. I looked at him and knew I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t stick with it that long, just grinding from one mini Tour event to another. I didn’t have that same burning desire.” Find something you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life. Moscrip had spent a quarter century chasing what he thought was his passion, only to realize that what he cared the most about had been right in front of him all along. After returning from the mini Tours, Moscrip spent a few years working for payroll company ADP before one day floating an idea to Duke for a spinoff restaurant called Duke’s Chowder Bar, that would be a “fast-casual” Duke’s experience in high-traffic
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areas (an idea that, if it came today, would probably lead to a food truck). Duke loved the idea and put John in charge of this new concept — and, surprisingly, John found that the desire that hadn’t been there on a golf course in South Dakota was suddenly burning inside of him. Within a few years, Moscrip had risen through the ranks at Duke’s to become COO and, ultimately, a partner in the business. “I love the feeling I get when we knock it out of the park with a food experience,” he says. “Duke’s is an iconic restaurant, and people have come with their families for generations. But we’re still constantly working to innovate. “I know it’s maybe a bit cliche, but there really are a lot of lessons from golf that apply to my work every day,” he adds. “You have to take one thing at a time, learn from your mistakes, move on and get better for the next time. You need patience, hard work and perseverance. You’ll never have a perfect shift, which means you can always strive to do better. Every day is something new and different. It’s a fun challenge and I love collaborating on it with the people we have.” These days, Moscrip still finds time to play 30-35 rounds a year, mostly at TPC Snoqualmie Ridge, where he’s a member. Many of those rounds include his wife, Jamie, and his two children, Hannah (11) and Hudson (9). Watching their development, and their growing love for the game, is what inspired Moscrip to fund the Duke’s Junior Golf Scholarship, to help open doors for local young golfers aspiring to further their golf development. In 2016, the scholarship awarded $4,000 to four local golfers, with plans to grow the program even further in the coming year. Moscrip knows firsthand that the lessons these players learn along the way will help shape their future, regardless of how far their golf talent takes them. “Our goal with the scholarship — and I include Duke in that, too, because he’s been very much behind it — has been to help kids achieve their goals, both in golf and beyond,” he says. “It’s been absolutely incredible to see and hear the response we’ve gotten — I’ve easily had over 100 people reach out to me to say something about it. I’ve had the chance to call and speak with every one of our four winners this year, and they’re all amazing; I can’t wait to see what they’re going to do next in their lives. We’re looking forward to taking this to another level next year and hopefully for many years to come!” cascadegolfer.com