Cantlay wins Jack Nicklaus award

From UCLA:

Los Angeles, CA - Coming off of his National Freshman of the Year honors on Friday, freshman Patrick Cantlay has once again been honored by the GCAA with the Jack Nicklaus Award for Division I National Player of the Year.

"It's a great honor to be selected as the Nicklaus Award winner," Cantlay said. "It means a lot to me and I am very happy to have played well enough to receive it. I had a great time this year playing for UCLA and I really enjoyed spending time with Coach Freeman and Coach Sigler and the guys on the team."

Cantlay becomes the first UCLA golfer to win the award since Kevin Chappell won it in 2008, and he joins Chappell, Corey Pavin (1982) and Duffy Waldorf (1985) as the only UCLA golfers to win National Player of the Year honors. He also became the first golfer to win both National Player of the Year and National Freshman of the Year in the same season.

A first-team All-American selection, Patrick recorded a national best four victories during the season. He won at the Gifford Collegiate Championship, USC Invitational, Amer Ani Invitational and the NCAA West Regional. Cantlay also finished runner up at the NCAA Championship this past week. Overall, he led the Bruins with seven top five finishes and set a new UCLA single season record for stroke play scoring average at 70.5, breaking the previous mark held by his teammate Gregor Main. He also led the team in rounds under par (20), rounds under 70 (17) and top 10 finishes (9). Finally, Cantlay was named the Pac-10 Player of the Year and the Freshman of the Year, becoming just the second golfer in league history to earn both awards in the same season.

"Patrick played extremely well the entire year," Head Coach Derek Freeman said. "He deserves all the awards for his hard work and dedication towards his golf game. The Nicklaus Award is a very difficult award to win especially with all the great collegiate players. I am really happy for Patrick and his future is going to be exciting."

Cantlay set another UCLA record as shot 30-under par for the entire season in 37 rounds. He only finished outside the top-10 three times in 13 events this year and was named a finalist for the Ben Hogan Award, given out annually to the nation's top collegiate player.