Pepperdine senior Sahith Theegala didn’t have the senior season he expected due to the coronavirus pandemic, but maybe that’s a good thing.
The Pepperdine senior won the 2020 Haskins Award on May 8 and on Tuesday added another prestigious trophy to his collection: the 2020 Ben Hogan Award.
Theegala, the top-ranked college player on the Golfweek/Sagarin ranking, was named a finalist for the annual award given to the nation’s top men’s college golfer in April alongside Vanderbilt senior John Augenstein and Florida freshman Ricky Castillo.
Theegala, the first golfer from Pepperdine to be nominated for the Ben Hogan award, won the Southwest Invitational and the Alister MacKenzie Invitational and had four more top-10 finishes in the shortened 2019-20 season.
Along with his win of this year’s Ben Hogan Award, Theegala will play in the 2021 Charles Schwab Challenge.
Castillo is the No. 2 ranked player on the Golfweek/Sagarin ranking and Augenstein sits at No. 7.
All three golfers were first-time finalists and met the criteria for the award after each players’ performances over the past 12 months of competition were considered. This year’s college golf season was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so only competitions between May 21, 2019 and March 12, 2020 were considered in determining a winner.
Other winners of the Ben Hogan Award include Jon Rahm, Patrick Cantlay and Rickie Fowler.
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