Maverick McNealy of Stanford is one of three players from the Pacific 12 Conference who have been selected as finalists for the Ben Hogan Award, given annually to the best college golfer in the nation.
McNealy, a sophomore from Portola Valley, is No. 1 in the Golfstat Rankings and the Golfweek/Sagarin Rankings this season, and leads NCAA Division I with five titles, including a 10-stroke victory in the individual portion of the Pac-12 Conference Championship.
Senior Cheng-Tsung Pan of Washington, who is from Taiwan, and junior Jon Rahm of Arizona State, from Spain, are the other finalists. This is the first time in history of the award, which dates to 1990 when the criteria also included academic achievement, that all three finalists have come from the same conference.
Previous winners since the criteria was changed in 2002 to recognize golf achievement only include 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); Peter Uihlein (Oklahoma State, 2011); Patrick Cantlay (UCLA, 2012); Chris Williams (Washington, 2013), and Patrick Rodgers (Stanford, 2014).
The award will be presented on May 18 during a banquet at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, on the week of the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial on the PGA Tour.
The award-winner will receive a sponsors exemption into the 2016 Colonial, in addition to a $25,000 grant for the men’s golf scholarship program at his school. The other two finalists’ schools each will receive grants of $12,500.
