[PHOTO: Michael Reaves]
Scottie Scheffler has very strong feelings about who should be voted PGA Tour Player of the Year. And it isn’t him.
Scheffler enjoyed a strong follow-up to his Player of the Year season of a year ago, winning the Players Championship and successfully defending his title at the WM Phoenix Open. He was in contention in almost every event he entered, piling up 14 top-five finishes on the strength of some eye-popping ball-striking statistics. He pocketed a record $US21 million.
He said overnight, Australian time, at the Hero World Challenge that he wouldn’t vote for himself for Player of the Year, though he indicated that he’ll probably vote for the guy who just had a season similar to his 2021-2022 campaign.
That would be Jon Rahm, who followed Scheffler as Masters champion.
“I don’t think it’s in good taste to vote for yourself,” said Scheffler, the No.1 player in the world, when the subject of Player of the Year voting was broached.
“Honestly, I think with the way Jon played at the beginning of the year with his four wins and one of them being a major, I think these are pretty… we play this game to win. Yeah, the consistency’s great, but you want to win golf tournaments, and Jon was able to do that at such a high clip at the beginning of the year.”
Rahm did win four times, topped by his three-stroke victory over Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson at Augusta National Golf Club. The 29-year-old Spaniard, currently No.3 in the world, also produced a huge rally to blow past Collin Morikawa at the Sentry Tournament of Champions and then won the American Express tournament and the Mexico Open at Vidanta.
Scheffler, who has finished runner-up the past two years at Tiger Woods’ Hero World Challenge, also won four times in 2022, also including the Masters. Of course, last year’s season ended with the Tour Championship in August. The just-completed season was spread across 13 months, starting on September 15, 2022, at the Fortinet Championship, and ending at the RSM Classic on November 19.
In addition to Rahm and Scheffler, the list of nominees is likely to include FedEx Cup champion Viktor Hovland, who won three times. The ballot is scheduled to be announced later this week or early next week, and the winner will be revealed in late December, giving tour members a couple of weeks to submit their selection.
“If [Rahm] finished off the year that way, it probably wouldn’t even be a discussion,” Scheffler said. “But since it was six, seven months ago, eight months ago, whatever it is, people aren’t thinking about it as much, but he was pretty unstoppable to start the year.”
Sounds like Scheffler believes that should be enough.
