New Zealand golfers Lydia Ko and Steve Alker will be honoured at this year’s Masters for their outstanding 2022 seasons.
Photo: AFP
Ko has picked up the prestigious Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA) player of the year award for the LPGA Tour, while Alker has claimed the same prize for the PGA Champions Tour.
Along with PGA Tour player of the year, Scottie Scheffler, the two New Zealanders will receive their recognition at the annual GWAA awards dinner at Augusta in April.
Ko, who won three times last year and earned a record pay cheque in the season-ending Tour Championship, also collected the GWAA prize in 2015 and is the only one of the three to previously win the award.
The 25-year-old picked up 79.5 per cent of first-place votes.
“It means so much to me to win it for a second time,” Ko said.
“What an amazing year 2022 turned out to be. So many cool things happened in my life, culminating in my wedding. While nothing could be more special than that, my golf was pretty good, too.”
Alker earned the Champions Tour award from the GWAA after a stunning season which culminated in taking out the season-long Charles Schwab Cup.
The 51-year-old, who won four times and finished in the top three in 13 of his 23 starts, earned 50.3 per cent of first-place votes to beat out Padraig Harrington and Steve Stricker.
“That’s pretty neat, especially with the company that I’m in, with all the names [of past winners],” Alker said.
“Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Hale Irwin, Bernhard (Langer), that’s pretty neat. Look, the awards that come along with a season like that are amazing. It’s fantastic.
“Obviously, I had time to sit down just before Christmas and kind of think about really what I’d done. I’m pleased and proud of myself for the consistency that I had throughout the year. That was the big thing.”
The GWAA awards dinner will be held on April 6 (NZ time) in Augusta, during the week of the Masters Tournament.
– RNZ
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