Two weeks ago, we gave you a quiz. Check out these college golf resumes and determine who you think should be the national player of the year based on raw stats from a season sadly cut short due to the coronavirus.
For the women, your choices were:
Player A:
6 starts
0 wins
5 top-five finishes
5 top-10 finishes
Finishes outside top-10: T-35
70.94 average
Low round: 67
5 rounds in the 60s
Player B:
6 starts
3 wins
4 top-five finishes
4 top-10 finishes
Finishes outside top-10: T-16, T-26
70.8 average (broke school’s single-season record)
67 season low round
4 rounds in the 60s
Player C:
7 starts
2 wins
5 top-five finishes
5 top-10 finishes
Finishes outside top-10: T-23
70.33 average (broke school’s single-season record)
Low round: 66
9 rounds in the 60s
And for the men, you had the following:
Player A:
8 starts
2 wins
4 top-five finishes
6 top-10 finishes
Finishes outside top-10: T-15, T-19
69.04 average
Low round: 64
15 rounds in 60s
Player B:
7 starts
2 wins
2 top-five finishes
3 top-10s finishes
Finishes outside top-10: T-21, T-24, T-15, T-22
70.1 average
Low round: 63
7 rounds in 60s
Player C:
7 starts
1 win
2 top-five finishes
5 top-10 finishes
Finishes outside top-10: T-12, T-32
69.95 average
Low round: 66
9 rounds in 60s
Player D:
7 starts
1 win
3 top-five finishes
4 top-10 finishes
Finishes outside the top 10: T-13, T-24, T-14
69.95 average
Low round: 63
8 rounds in 60s
If you picked B and A from the list, then on Friday night you correctly predicted the winners of the Annika Award and the Fred Haskins Award as Furman’s Natalie Srinivasan and Pepperdine’s Sahith Theegala walked off with the prizes, respectively.
Srinivasan, a 21-year-old senior from Spartanburg, S.C., who also earned the Women’s Golf Coaches Association’s top honor, is the first player from Furman to be named national college player of the year. Annika Sorenstam herself called Srinivasan to tell her she’d won the prize, which comes with an exemption into the 2021 Evian Championship.
“I was definitely shocked when I got the call from Annika,” said Srinivasan, who plans to turn professional and play on the Symetra Tour when it restarts in July. “It was something I really didn’t expect. This award means so much since it is voted on by coaches, my fellow players and the golf media. It is really special to me and I really didn’t expect it at all.”
RELATED: Frozen at No. 1, a gutted Pepperdine men’s golf team wonders ‘What if?’
For Theegala, a fifth-year senior from Chino Hills, Calif., the award was bittersweet. Appreciative of the recognition for his individual play, Theegala had been focused on helping the Waves claim a team title. Pepperdine was ranked No. 1 in the country when the announcement came that the 2020 NCAA Championship had been canceled.
“This was our year,” Theegala said. “This wasn’t just a one-year thing for Pepperdine. We built into this over a long time. A lot of our guys put in so much hard work. The coaches did their best to get us to this point … The team was such a big reason why I had such a big year.
“Our team was just so competitive within ourselves, we never let ourselves get complacent and we were always keeping each other on our toes. So I attribute a large part of my individual success to the team pushing me and the coaches pushing me. That was honestly a really big part of why I played well this year.”
Theegala holds Pepperdine career records for scoring average (70.61) and below-par rounds (74) and is tied for the No. 1 spot in top-20 finishes (36) and wins (four).
On the men’s side, two more top Division I honors remain to be handed out: The Ben Hogan Award, given to the top college player and accounting for both his college and amateur records over the past year, and the GCAA Jack Nicklaus Award, based off the 2019-’20 season.