Arizona State junior Jon Rahm is the recipient of the 2015 Ben Hogan Award, which honors men\'s college golf\'s top player.
Rahm, of Barrika, Spain, became the first player born outside of North America to win the award. He won four collegiate events this season, including the San Diego Regional, and earned eight top-five finishes.
Rahm heads into the NCAA Championship in Bradenton, Florida, with the second-best scoring average in the country at 68.78 and led the nation in par-5 scoring at 4.47, according to Golfstat.
Rahm\'s year included triumphs in college, on the amateur circuit and even on the PGA Tour. He medaled at the 2014 World Amateur Team Championship, breaking Jack Nicklaus\' individual scoring record at the event, and finished in the top five at the PGA Tour\'s Waste Management Phoenix Open.
Rahm is the No. 1 player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and No. 2 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings.
With Rahm\'s win, the Hogan Award winner has come from a Pac-12 school for four straight years (Patrick Cantlay, 2012; Chris Williams, 2013; Patrick Rodgers, 2014).
Maverick McNealy, a sophomore at Stanford, and Cheng-Tsung Pan, a senior at Washington, were finalists along with Rahm. This marked the first time that all three finalists played in the same conference.
The Ben Hogan Award is given to the top collegiate golfer – including all NCAA, NAIA and NJCAA divisions – considering all collegiate and amateur competitions, as decided by a 25-person committee. The award has been presented annually since 1990, with Hunter Mahan (Oklahoma State, 2003), Bill Haas (Wake Forest, 2004), Chris Kirk (Georgia, 2007), Rickie Fowler (Oklahoma State, 2008) and Patrick Rodgers (Stanford, 2014).
