Adam Hadwin, who had two wins on the Web.com Tour, was named Canada’s top male golfer of 2014, while Brooke Henderson was picked as the country’s top female amateur in a vote released today by the Golf Journalists Association of Canada.
Other golfers receiving accolades were LPGA veteran Alena Sharp, who was voted as the country’s top female professional, and U.S. Amateur runner-up Corey Conners, who received the nod as the country’s top male amateur. Conners continues to play as an amateur, and will turn professional after participating in the Masters, golf’s first major championship of 2015, in April.
“We at GJAC are delighted to honour this remarkable foursome, and the runners up who in other years could have won handily,” said Hal Quinn, president of the Golf Journalists Association of Canada, an organization that represents more than 80 writers, TV reporters and others who are involved in golf.
“The skill levels and accomplishments of the winners and all the nominees heralds a new and very promising era in Canadian golf.”
Naming Hadwin as the country’s top player may come as a surprise to some. The Abbotsford, B.C. native topped the Web.com Tour money list and will play a full season on the PGA Tour this year. Hadwin bettered fellow Abbotsford golfer Nick Taylor, who won the Sanderson Farms Championship in November on the PGA Tour, becoming the first Canadian to win on the tour since Stephen Ames in 2009, and Weyburn, Sask., standout Graham DeLaet, who earned more than $2.6-million, but spent the last months of 2014 injured.
Sharp was named as the top female pro by the GJAC for the second time in the past four years. Sharp had two Top 20 finishes on the LPGA Tour in 2014. She’s no longer the top-ranked female pro in Canada though, following the decision of 17-year old Henderson, from Smiths Falls, to try for the LPGA Tour in December. Henderson was voted the top female amateur for the third year in a row, while Conners, from Listowel, Ont., was named the top amateur for the second year in a row.
Henderson was runner-up at the U.S. Women’s Amateur, and was low amateur at the U.S. Women’s Open. Conners won three NCAA Division I individual titles in his graduating year from Kent St. University, and is Canada’s highest-ranked male amateur golfer.
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