May 12, 2006
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech golfer Mike Barbosa is among the six finalists for the 2006 Bryon Nelson Award announced by the Golf Coaches Association of America.
Barbosa, a senior from St. Petersburg, Fla., who graduated from Tech May 5 with his degree in Management, joins Arizona State’s Alejandro Cañizares, Brian Carroll of George Washington, Pepperdine’s Alex Coe, Andrew Dresser of Texas Tech and Oklahoma State’s Zack Robinson as finalists for the award.
Candidates for the Nelson must be a graduating senior and the selection committee will consider equally a nominee’s entire collegiate academic career, entire collegiate golf career and his character and integrity while in college. Particular consideration will be given to a nominee’s good citizenship, as portrayed by Mr. Byron Nelson over the course of his life and golf career.
Barbosa, who has made the ACC’s Academic Honor Roll all four of his years at Georgia Tech (including a red-shirt year in 2001-02) and likely will do so again this year, plans to play a full amateur schedule this summer and then begin work toward law school.
After his red-shirt year, Barbosa, a first-team junior All-American prior to his enrollment, played in only three events during his red-shirt freshman year and had mixed success during the fall of his sophomore year. Since then, he has not missed one event Tech has played, recording 14 top-20 finishes along the way and posting a stroke average around 73 over than period. Barbosa has posted four top-20 finishes this spring, including a tie for fourth at the United States Collegiate Championship.
He earned all-ACC honors last year for the first time, and was recognized as a Cleveland Golf All-America Scholar. He also captured the title at the 2004 Cardinal Amateur, one of the premier amateur events in the nation.
The Nelson recipient will be named prior to the NCAA Championships.
