FILE PHOTO: Golf - The 2023 Ryder Cup - Marco Simone Golf & Country Club, Rome, Italy - October 1, 2023 Team USA's Scottie Scheffler walks off the 2nd green during the Singles REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/File Photo
(Reuters) -Scottie Scheffler has been voted the PGA Tour Player of the Year for a second consecutive season, making him the first back-to-back winner since Tiger Woods won three straight from 2005-07, the U.S.-based circuit said on Wednesday.
World number one Scheffler, who successfully defended his Phoenix Open title and won The Players Championship during the 2022-23 season, beat Wyndham Clark, Viktor Hovland, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm in a vote by players for the Jack Nicklaus Award.
The PGA Tour said Scheffler received 38% of the vote.
The 27-year-old American joins Fred Couples (1991, 1992), Nick Price (1993, 1994) and Woods (1999-2003, 2005-2007), as the only players to win the award in back-to-back seasons.
"Anything that you receive voted on by your peers is very special to me and being able to go home with this trophy two years in a row now is very special," Scheffler said ahead of this week's season-opening event at Kapalua in Hawaii.
"I think the body of work I put in last year with the consistency and finishing top most of the weeks that I played I was very proud of that consistency, and so yeah, I'm very appreciative of the award."
In 23 starts, Scheffler had 13 top-fives and 17 top-10s, both high marks for any player in a single season on the PGA Tour since 2005, when Vijay Singh and Woods each had 13 top-fives and Singh had 18 top-10s.
Scheffler also set the PGA Tour record for most official money earned in a season at $21 million, breaking the record of $14 million he set last season, and claimed the Byron Nelson Award for recording the lowest scoring average (68.63) on Tour.
American Eric Cole received the Arnold Palmer Award as the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year after a season in which he was the lone rookie to qualify for the BMW Championship.
The 35-year-old Cole, who beat Ludvig Aberg and Vincent Norrman of Sweden and Colombian Nico Echavarria for the award, is the second-oldest player to win Rookie of the Year honours.
"It's an award in golf where you only get one chance to win it, which is a little bit unique," said Cole. "To win that and be voted by my peers is pretty incredible, and it's just a huge honour."
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in TorontoEditing by Toby Davis)
