Feb. 8, 2012
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech All-American James White, the nation’s 21st-ranked player with two top-five finishes in five events this year, was named Wednesday to the watch list for the 2012 Ben Hogan Award.
The most prestigious award in men’s college golf, The Ben Hogan Award is presented annually to the top men’s NCAA Division I, II or III, NAIA or NJCAA college golfer taking into account all collegiate and amateur competitions during the past 12-month period. The Ben Hogan Award Selection Committee represents leaders in professional, amateur and collegiate golf.
Baird Private Wealth Management, in association with Colonial Country Club, The Friends of Golf (FOG) and the Golf Coaches Association of America, announced the list of 28 collegiate golfers in contention for the award.
White, a senior from Acworth, Ga., tied for fourth place in last week’s Amer Ari Invitational to begin the spring season. He also finished fourth at the Western Refining All-American Championship in November and has not finished out of the top 20 in five tournaments this year. He leads the 7th-ranked Yellow Jackets in stroke average (71.4).
The 2012 The Ben Hogan Award Watch List also includes: Blayne Barber (Auburn, Jr.), Zac Blair (BYU, Jr.), Julien Brun (TCU, Fr.), Patrick Cantlay (UCLA, So.), Sean Dale (North Florida, Jr.), Derek Ernst (UNLV, Sr.), Dylan Frittelli (Texas, Sr.), Luke Guthrie (Illinois, Sr.), Stephan Jaeger (Chattanooga, Sr.), Brooks Koepka (Florida State, Sr.), Jace Long (Missouri, Jr.), Bryden Macpherson (Georgia, Jr.), Daniel Miernicki (Oregon, Sr.), Corbin Mills (Clemson, Jr.), Cheng-Tsung Pan (Washington, Fr.), Thomas Pieters (Illinois, So.), Patrick Rodgers (Stanford, Fr.), Kyle Souza (Chico State, Sr.), Jordan Spieth (Texas, Fr.), Justin Thomas (Alabama, Fr.), Ethan Tracy (Arkansas, Sr.), Harold Varner (East Carolina, Sr.), T.J. Vogel (Florida, Jr.),Cory Whitsett (Alabama, So.), Chris Williams (Washington, Jr.), Eugene Wong (Oregon, Sr.) and Andrew Yun (Stanford, Jr.).
A list of 10 semifinalists will be unveiled on Wednesday, April 11, and then will be pared down to three finalists on Thursday, May 10. The winner will be crowned at a banquet at Colonial Country Club on Monday, May 21, prior to the start of the PGA TOUR’s Crowne Plaza Invitational.
The award, which was first issued in 1990 and also included academic achievement in its original list of standards, revised its criteria for the 2001-02 collegiate season to its current standard of honoring the outstanding amateur collegiate golfer.
Since that time, the winners have been: D.J. Trahan (Clemson, 2002), Ricky Barnes (Arizona, 2003), Hunter Mahan (Oklahoma State, 2003), Bill Haas (Wake Forest, 2004), Ryan Moore (UNLV, 2005), Matt Every (Florida, 2006), Chris Kirk (Georgia, 2007), Rickie Fowler (Oklahoma State, 2008), Kyle Stanley (Clemson, 2009), Nick Taylor (Washington, 2010) and Peter Uihlein (Oklahoma State, 2011).
Each of the first nine listed above is currently playing full time on the PGA TOUR. Over the last 10 PGA TOUR tournaments, former Hogan Award winners have recorded three victories and two runner-up finishes.
To find the latest information on The Ben Hogan Award, its candidates and its previous winners, visit www.Facebook.com/BenHoganAward and @BenHoganAward on Twitter.
About the Candidates
• The Ben Hogan Award Watch List includes 11 seniors, nine juniors, three sophomores and five freshmen.
• The list includes the top 13 players in the latest Golfweek individual rankings and 19 of the top 25. It also features the top 3, 7 of the top 10 and 14 of the top 25 players in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. Finally, it boasts 3 of the top 5, 6 of the top 10 and 16 of the top 30 in the Scratch Players World Amateur Ranking.
• A total of 22 universities are represented. Six schools (Alabama, Illinois, Oregon, Stanford, Texas and Washington) have two nominees.
• With seven, the Pac-12 has the most nominees among any conference. The other conferences with multiple student-athletes on the Watch List include: SEC (6), ACC (3), Big 12 (3), Big 10 (2) and MWC (2).
• The 28 players hail from 14 different states and seven foreign countries (Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, South Africa and Taiwan). The states represented include: California (4), Florida (4), Texas (2), Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Utah.
• The list includes four 2011 PING First-Team All-Americans (Patrick Cantlay, Luke Guthrie, James White and Andrew Yun), three Second-Team All-Americans (Blayne Barber, Cory Whitsett and Chris Williams) and one Third-Team All-American (Dylan Frittelli).
• UCLA’s Patrick Cantlay was one of the three The Ben Hogan Award finalists in 2011.
• Chico State’s Kyle Souza is the lone non-Division I golfer on the list. He won the NCAA Division II national championship in 2011.
• Eighteen of the 28 golfers have Twitter accounts.
