By CNN
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Scottie Scheffler retained his title as the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year on Wednesday, crowned by his peers ahead of LIV Golf’s latest recruit Jon Rahm.
World No. 1 Scheffler received 38% of the vote from players who competed in at least 15 FedEx Cup events during the 2022-23 season to become the fourth player to clinch back-to-back Jack Nicklaus Awards, and the first since Tiger Woods three-peated in 2007.
The American recorded the lowest scoring average on the PGA Tour (68.63) en route to two victories at The Players Championship and the WM Phoenix Open, recording 17 top-10’s and never missing a cut across 23 events.
Scheffler’s 13-top five finishes helped him earn an unprecedented $21,014,342 in prize money, breaking the PGA Tour season record of $14,046,910 that he set across the previous campaign.
“I guess this year they really appreciated my consistency,” Scheffler told reporters on the eve of The Sentry in Hawaii, the first PGA Tour event of 2024, on Wednesday.
“The way I played the entire year, I think I maybe only had one or two starts that I would categorize as not great, but other than that I had a lot of starts where I just played really solid golf, and to do that for an entire season out here I think is very difficult.”
It was a somewhat bittersweet year for Scheffler, who could not add to his 2022 Masters title at the majors despite multiple strong showings before suffering a painful defeat with Team USA at the Ryder Cup in October.
Those disappointments served in stark contrast to world No. 3 Rahm, who sealed his second career major triumph at Augusta National in April before playing a pivotal role in Europe’s 16.5 – 11.5 triumph in Rome.
The Spaniard tallied four wins across 20 events on the PGA Tour, all inside the first four months of 2023, and recorded ten top-10 finishes before his departure to LIV Golf was announced in December.
As part of a reported three-year, $300 million deal, Rahm will have an ownership stake in a new LIV Golf team, according to ESPN, citing unnamed sources.
Asked whether he would have rather have had Rahm’s year, Scheffler replied that he did “not focus too much on the past or the future.”
“I’m very proud of the body of work that I put in, the consistency that I put in last year I’m very proud of,” Scheffler added.
Alongside Scheffler and Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland and 2023 US Open champion Wyndham Clark were also nominated for the Player of the Year award.
The Arnold Palmer Award, given to the PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year, was won via vote by Eric Cole, rewarding the 35-year-old for two runner-up finishes and seven top-10’s during his first season on the tour.
Having begun 2023 ranked 383rd in the world, the American enters the new year as world No. 43. Cole is the second-oldest player to claim Rookie of the Year after Todd Hamilton won the award aged 39 in 2004.
