Typically, the end of April means conference championships and gearing up for the postseason. But with college golf prematurely over, due to the coronavirus pandemic, late April means gearing up for awards season. A long list of distinguished college golfers that made up the Ben Hogan Award finalist list has now been trimmed to three names.
Pepperdine senior Sahith Theegala, Vanderbilt senior John Augenstein and Florida freshman Ricky Castillo are the remaining candidates for the award, given annually to the top men’s college golfer taking into account all collegiate and amateur competitions over the past 12 months. This year’s season was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning that all tournaments played between May 21, 2019, and March 12, 2020, were considered.
Augenstein was the runner-up at the 2019 U.S. Amateur. In his final college season, he notched a victory at the Desert Mountain Intercollegiate and had two other top-five finishes, including a runner-up showing at the Nike Golf Collegiate.
Theegala, back for his redshirt senior season after sitting out last year with a wrist injury, finished an abbreviated season as the top-ranked college player in both the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings and the Golfstat individual rankings. He advanced to match play at the U.S. Amateur and Western Amateur.
An impressive freshman campaign from Castillo included back-to-back tournaments victories at the Sea Best Invitational and Florida Gators Invitational. In all, he posted a 70.14 scoring average over seven events.
Augenstein and Theegala become the first golfers from their respective schools to be named finalists for the Ben Hogan Award. Castillo is the first Florida player since Matt Every won in 2006, and is also looking to become only the second freshman ever to win the award. Oklahoma State’s Rickie Fowler remains the only player to accomplish that feat in 2008.
The Hogan Award winner will be named in June but the traditional 2020 Ben Hogan Award dinner will not be held due to the pandemic. The 2020 recipient earns the first invitation into the PGA Tour’s 2021 Charles Schwab Challenge and will be honored during that week’s festivities.
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