Pepperdine teammates Sahith Theegala and William Mouw are two of 10 players on the final watch list for the 2020 Haskins Award, given annually to the best player in Men’s Division I College Golf.
The award will be presented this year even though much of the Spring season was canceled because of the Coronavirus pandemic.
“With these uncertain times and with the cancellation of the remainder of the 2019-20 NCAA golf season, we believe it is important that we continue to move forward in celebrating the fantastic college golf that took place this year and recognizing these outstanding athletes,” said Brian Stubbs, executive director of the Fred Haskins Commission.
Voting for the Haskins Award will run from April 7-21 and is open to Division I players and coaches, plus members of the media. The winner of the award will be announced late in May.
Theegala (pictured), a senior from Chino Hills who was No. 1 in the final Golfweek/Sagarin Men’s College Rankings, captured the Alister Mackenzie Invitational and the Southwestern Invitational this season to give him four victories in his college career. Those were two of his six top-10 results for the Waves during the 2019-20 season.
In addition, Theegala won the 2020 Australia Master of the Amateurs, the 2019 Southern California Amateur, the 2017 Sahalee Players Championship, the 2015 Orange County Championship, the 2014 Los Angeles City Championship and the 2014 Coronado City Championship.
Mouw, a freshman from Chino who won the 2019 California Amateur Championship at the age of 18, claimed his first college victory in the Amer Ari Invitational among his five top-10 finishes for the Waves this season.
Other finalists include senior Cooper Dossey of Baylor; senior Peter Kuest of BYU and Fresno, Calif.; senior John Augenstein of Vanderbilt; senior Garett Reband of Oklahoma; junior Davis Thompson of Georgia; junior John Axelsen of Florida and Denmark; freshman Ricky Castillo of Florida and Yorba Linda, Calif., and junior John Pak of Florida State.
Past winners of the Haskins Award include Tiger Woods of Stanford and Cypress, Calif., Phil Mickelson of Arizona State and San Diego, Ben Crenshaw of Texas, Maverick McNealy of Stanford, Patrick Rodgers of Stanford, Michael Kim of California, Patrick Cantlay of UCLA, Jamie Lovemark of USC, Kevin Chappell of UCLA, Sam Randolph of USC, Scott Simpson of USC, Bobby Clampett of BYU and Pebble Beach, Calif., Norman Xiong of Oregon and Canyon Lake, Calif., and Beau Hossler of Texas and Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.
Matthew Wolff of Oklahoma State and Agoura Hills, Calif., won the award last year and went on to capture the 3M Invitational as a rookie on the PGA Tour in July.
