STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford junior Maverick McNealy has been named one of three finalists for The Ben Hogan Award, as announced Tuesday by Colonial Country Club, Friends of Golf and the Golf Coaches Association of America. Texas junior Beau Hossler and Arizona State senior Jon Rahm join McNealy as finalists.
All three finalists are currently ranked among the top six in all four major ranking systems -- World Amateur Golf Ranking, Scratch Players World Amateur Ranking, Golfweek/Sagarin Ranking and Golfstat Individual Ranking. Rahm, the award's reigning winner, and McNealy, a 2015 finalist, are being invited to Fort Worth for the second straight year.
The three student-athletes will attend a black-tie banquet at Colonial Country Club on May 23 prior to the start of the PGA Tour's Dean & DeLuca Invitational, where the winner will be crowned.
McNealy and Rahm are multi-time finalists, joining a list that includes just four others -- Chris Kirk (2006, 2007), Rickie Fowler (2008, 2009), Patrick Cantlay (2011, 2012) and Rodgers (2012, 2014) -- since the naming of three finalists began in 2005. Arizona State or Stanford could join Oklahoma State (3), Washington (2) and Clemson (2) as schools with multiple winners since 2002. Since 2012, Stanford has boasted five of the 15 finalists courtesy of Rodgers (2012, 2014), Cameron Wilson (2014) and McNealy (2015, 2016).
McNealy is listed second in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, Golfweek/Sagarin Ranking and Golfstat Ranking. The junior is second nationally with four medalist honors this season and has placed inside the top 10 in eight of his 10 tournaments for the Cardinal. In addition, McNealy boasts a 69.19 scoring average and broke the school’s 54-hole scoring record at the Western Intercollegiate (194).
The Portola Valley, California, product played on the 2015 United States Walker Cup team and the winning Palmer Cup squad. In addition, he advanced to the round of 16 at last summer’s U.S. Amateur. McNealy won the 2015 Northern California Golf Association Match Play Championship after finishing as the event’s stroke play medalist, and also tied for second at the 2015 Pacific Coast Amateur.
McNealy made the cut at two PGA Tour events in 2015, the Greenbrier Classic and Barbasol Championship. He had his highest finish on the tour this season, when he shared 46th place at the 2016 Arnold Palmer Invitational.
The 2016 Ben Hogan Award recipient will receive an exemption into the 2017 Dean & DeLuca Invitational, as well as earn a $30,000 grant for its men’s golf scholarship program. The other two finalists’ schools each will receive grants of $15,000.
The Ben Hogan Award is presented 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 12-month period dating from the previous award’s banquet. The selection committee is made up of two dozen leaders and experts in amateur, college and professional golf. In order to determine the finalists, each committee member cast a ballot that ranked the group of 10 semifinalists from 1-10.
The Pac-12 Conference has now had at least one finalist for seven consecutive seasons. The Pac-12 has had at least two nominees five straight years, and has boasted 11 of the past 15 finalists dating to 2012. A player from the Pac-12 has won The Ben Hogan Award in each of the past four years -- UCLA’s Patrick Cantlay (2012), Washington’s Chris Williams (2013), Stanford’s Patrick Rodgers (2014) and Rahm (2015).