Photo by Tracy Wilcox/PGA TOUR via Getty Images
Scheffler did it again. He is the 2023 PGA Tour Player of the Year, as he joined elite company in doing so.
Ahead of the 2024 season opener at The Sentry, the PGA Tour announced who won the Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year awards.
Scottie Scheffler earned the former and is the Jack Nicklaus Award winner for the second consecutive season. He is the first player to do so since Tiger Woods earned the honors three straight years from 2005-07.
The membership votes on these two honors. They voted from Dec. 1 through Dec. 15 to determine the winners with the former Texas Longhorn receiving 38% of the vote.
Scheffler also won the Byron Nelson Award for finishing with the low-scoring average of the year. His average score was 68.63, the lowest since Tiger Woods in 2009 at 68.05.
“Anything you receive, voted on by your peers, is very special to me. Being able to go home with this trophy two years in a row is very special,” Scheffler said ahead of the Sentry.” I think the work I put in last year with the consistency and finishing top most of the weeks I played. I was proud of that consistency, and so I’m very appreciative of the award.”
In 2023, the No. 1 player in the world won twice on the PGA Tour and finished the year with a third non-sanctioned victory at the Hero World Challenge. He defended his title at the WM Phoenix Open last February and won the Players Championship by five shots.
Scheffler recorded 23 starts last season. In those events, he tallied 13 top-5 finishes and 17 top-10s. He broke an 18-year record that Vijay Singh and Tiger Woods set in 2005 when they each had 13 top 5s. Singh had 18 top 10s that year.
The 27-year-old set the PGA Tour record for most official money earned in a single season at $21,014,342. He broke his record in 2022 when he won over $14 million.
Scheffler’s win does not come without a bit of controversy. A day prior, the Golf Writers Association of America voted Jon Rahm as the 2023 PGA Tour Player of the Year. Even Scheffler himself said late last year Rahm would probably get his vote, knowing the emphasis he puts on winning.
Rahm won four times including his second major at the Masters.
Some are left wondering whether this vote by players was related to Rahm’s shocking move to LIV last month.
But this award was not the only one to raise eyebrows.
Photo by Tracy Wilcox/PGA TOUR via Getty Images
Eric Cole edged out Ludvig Åberg to take home the Arnold Palmer Award, earning him Rookie of the Year honors.
Cole received 51% of the Rookie of the Year vote to become the second oldest player to receive the honors at 35.
He beat out the three other rookie nominees, Ludvig Åberg, Nico Echavarria and Vincent Norrman.
No one thought Echavarria or Norrman had any shot. But Åberg, who didn’t turn pro until June, played other-worldly golf the final few months of the season.
During his final six events, Åberg finished in the top 15 in all six, with three Top-3s and won the RSM Classic. Many believes his ascension was enough for him to capture the award. But it was not to be.
Despite not recording a victory in 2023, Cole finished the season at No. 43 and was the only rookie to play in the BMW Championship.
“I was just so happy to be out on TOUR finally, and any chance I had to compete on TOUR just felt like a huge privilege,” Cole said ahead of the Sentry. “I didn’t get off to the best start, missing some early cuts, but then got it together and started to play consistently and pretty well there the last half of the year and capped it off with a pretty good fall, so it was awesome.”
Cole won Rookie of the Year 50 years after his mom, Laura Baugh, incredibly won the LPGA Rookie of the Year honors in 1973.
He also had four Top-5 finishes during the FedEx Cup fall, including his last three starts.
In total, Cole tallied two runner-up finishes along with six Top-5s. Cole fell short in a playoff at the 2023 Cognizant Classic and finished behind Collin Morikawa at the ZOZO Championship. He led the PGA Tour with 554 birdies, beating out second by 59.
They both will tee it up this week at the Sentry at Kapalua, Maui.
Savannah Leigh Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. For more golf coverage, be sure to follow us @_PlayingThrough on all major social platforms. You can also follow her on Twitter @SportsGirlSL and Instagram @savannah_leigh_sports.
