UVA golfer Jimmy Stanger named to Ben Hogan Award watch list

UVA senior golfer Jimmy Stanger (Tampa, Fla) has been named to the 2017 Ben Hogan Award watch list. The most prestigious award in men’s college golf, The Ben Hogan Award is issued annually to the top men’s NCAA Division I, II or III, NAIA or NJCAA college golfer taking into account all collegiate and amateur competitions during the past 12-month period.

Stanger is one of 28 players named to the award’s watch list, which includes nine seniors, 10 juniors, seven sophomores and two freshmen.

Stanger, who is No. 29 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings, won the 2016 Southern Amateur and advanced to the Round of 16 in last year’s U.S. Amateur.

During UVA’s fall season, he led the Cavaliers with a 69.67 stroke average, helping the Cavaliers to three first-place finishes in four tournaments. He shared top honors at the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate. He ended the fall ranked No. 2 in the Golfstat standings.

Bard and his UVA teammates open the spring portion of their schedule Feb. 15-17 at the John Burns Intercollegiate in Kauai, Hawaii.

The 2017 Ben Hogan Award watch list, as determined by the award’s subcommittee, includes: Sam Burns (LSU), Cameron Champ (Texas A&M), Wyndham Clark (Oregon), Sean Crocker (Southern California), Jared du Toit (Arizona State), Jorge Garcia (Florida), Doug Ghim (Texas), Gavin Hall (Texas), Nick Hardy (Illinois), Rico Hoey (Southern California), Sam Horsfield (Florida), Viktor Hovland (Oklahoma State), Will Long (Auburn), Patrick Martin (Vanderbilt), Maverick McNealy (Stanford), Dylan Meyer (Illinois), Collin Morikawa (California), John Oda (UNLV), Chandler Phillips (Texas A&M), Doc Redman (Clemson), Scottie Scheffler (Texas), Matthias Schwab (Vanderbilt), Greyson Sigg (Georgia), Jimmy Stanger (Virginia), Sam Stevens (Oklahoma State), Braden Thornberry (Ole Miss), Alejandro Tosti (Florida) and Will Zalatoris (Wake Forest).

The Ben Hogan Award Selection Committee, which votes during each stage of the process, is comprised of leaders in professional, amateur and collegiate golf.

The list of 10 semifinalists, which could include individuals not on the watch list, will be unveiled on Wednesday, April 12. OnWednesday, May 3, that group will be pared down to three finalists. The finalists will attend a black-tie banquet at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, on Monday, May 22, prior to the start of the PGA TOUR’s Dean & DeLuca Invitational, where the winner will be crowned.

The award, which was first issued in 1990 and also included academic achievement in its original list of standards, revised its criteria for the 2001-02 collegiate season to its current standard of honoring the outstanding amateur collegiate golfer.

Since that time, the winners have been: D.J. Trahan (Clemson, 2002), Ricky Barnes (Arizona, 2003), Hunter Mahan (Oklahoma State, 2003), Bill Haas (Wake Forest, 2004), Ryan Moore (UNLV, 2005), Matt Every (Florida, 2006), Chris Kirk (Georgia, 2007), Rickie Fowler (Oklahoma State, 2008), Kyle Stanley (Clemson, 2009), Nick Taylor (Washington, 2010), Peter Uihlein (Oklahoma State, 2011), Patrick Cantlay (UCLA, 2012), Chris Williams (Washington, 2013), Patrick Rodgers (Stanford, 2014) and Rahm (Arizona State, 2015, 2016).