Florence native and PGA Tour golfer Stewart Cink and his wife Lisa announced a $180,000 donation to the UNA golf program in July 2012.

The donation will provide money for two scholarship funds as well as cover half the costs for the construction of a new UNA golf facility on the Robert Trent Jones golf trail.

“It means a lot to me, to the golf program, to North Alabama and to Florence,” said UNA Head Golf Coach Stuart Clark. “Stewart and Lisa are very giving people.”

According to roarlions.com, $50,000 of the Cinks’ donation will fund the new Stewart and Lisa Cink Scholarship Endowment, which will provide scholarships for graduates of Florence High School. The Cinks are 1991 graduates of Bradshaw High School, which later joined Coffee High School to form FHS.

$90,000 of the donation will be put towards the already existing Chris Burns and Alex Sloan Endowment Fund, which provide scholarships and assist with annual operation costs of the golf team, according to roarlions.com. The donation put the fund over $100,000, Clark said.

“[Stewart] said he wanted to help the golf team and he wanted to help students from Florence with tuition, and that’s when we came up with these scholarships,” Clark said.

Lastly, the Cinks’ donation will provide $43,000 towards the construction of the new Stewart and Lisa Cink UNA Golf Clubhouse and Teaching Center on the RTJ trail, according to roarlions.com.

The facility will be made up of three bays, a teaching room and an office for Clark. Two of the bays will be for UNA’s team, while the third bay will be for RTJ, Clark said.

Clark said that during the school year the facility will be used mostly by UNA and that during the summer it will be used to host community events. He also said the facility will enable him to better serve the community throughout the year by hosting junior clinics for young golfers.

“Life lessons are taught in golf, and hopefully [when we] build this facility we can give back to the community, give back to the juniors around this area and teach a game that [Stewart] loves and Lisa loves and has afforded them the life they have and give back to the community,” Clark said.

Clark, who already hosts junior clinics every summer, said he hopes to host these events every couple of weeks throughout the year.

“For him and Lisa, for giving that donation, that’s what I want to give back,” Clark said.

Clark said that the UNA golfers always participate in the junior clinics and will continue to do so. He said that young golfers look up to them as role models.

“I want them to learn that they are role models and their actions speak louder than their words,” Clark said.