Jon Rahm, fifth Spaniard to win European Tour Rookie of the Year award

Jon Rahm has been named 2017 European Tour Rookie of the Year, awarded the Sir Henry Cotton Award, after completing a magnificent first season on European soil, crowned with his victory in the summer at the Irish Open. The Basque is the fifth Spanish player to receive this distinction.

The current number five of the World Ranking and four of the Race to Dubai, has received the award from the hands of the Executive Director of the European Tour, Keith Pelley, in advance of the DP World Tour Championship, the event that closes the calendar.

Rahm officially became Rookie of the Year on Sunday after none of his closest competitors in South Africa – South Africa’s Dylan Frittelli, England’s Jordan Smith, Japan’s Hideto Tanihara and New Zealand’s Ryan Fox – could finish high enough in the Nedbank Golf Challenge to book themselves a chance in Dubai.

Rahm’s, just 23 years old, has been a meteoric rise to the top of world golf since turning professional in June 2016 after a brilliant amateur career, with relevant victories with both the National Teams and Arizona State University.

Jon Rahm is the fifth Spaniard to win the Sir Henry Cotton Award since it was established in 1960. The first to win it was José María Olazábal in 1986, followed by Sergio García (1999), Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño (2005) and Pablo Larrazábal (2008).

For Keith Pelley, general manager of the European Tour, “there is no more worthy recipient of the Sir Henry Cotton Award than Jon Rahm, whose rise to the top in such a short time has been one of the great stories of the season”.

“The way he played to make a 65 and win at Portstewart led many fans to compare him to the great Seve Ballesteros and, in fact, was the sentiment expressed on the front page of the Spanish newspaper Marca on Monday morning, whose translated headline read, “This is how Seve won.”

LIST OF DEBUTANTS OF THE YEAR, SIR HENRY COTTON AWARD

1960 Tommy Goodwin (ENG)

1961 Alex Caygill (ENG)

1963 Tony Jacklin (ENG)

1966 Robin Liddle (SCO)

1968 Bernard Gallacher (SCO)

1969 Peter Oosterhuis (ENG)

1970 Stuart Brown (ENG)

1971 David Llewellyn (WAL)

1972 Sam Torrance (SCO)

1973 Philip Elson (ENG)

1974 Carl Mason (ENG)