By Cal Aboud, SDA Media Relations Student Assistant
TEMPE, Ariz. – Sun Devil senior men’s golfer Jon Rahm will officially receive the 2015 Mark H. McCormack Medal as the leading player in the World Amateur Golf RankingTM this coming Thursday, Mar. 3, at the Arizona State men’s basketball game, slated to begin at 9:00 p.m./MT.
The McCormack Medal, named after Mark H. McCormack, founder of IMG and a lifelong avid supporter of golf, has recognized the No. 1 amateur player in golf since 2007. The medal is awarded at the culmination of the amateur season in August. The WAGR system currently ranks more than 6,000 amateur players based on cumulative performance in more than 2,300 events, and is offered by The R&A and the USGA as a global service to golf.
Rahm, the first Spanish player to receive the award, will as a result have full exemptions into both the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club in Pittsburgh and the 145TH Open at Royal Troon in Scotland.
Ed Gowan, executive director of the Arizona Golf Association, will present the award during the ceremony next week. Gowan, a well-respected figure in the Arizona golf community, has played an integral role in promoting amateur golf in the state. Acting as the executive director of the Arizona Golf Foundation that he co-founded in 1995, Gowan also currently serves on the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur Rules committees, is a USGA committee member, and a member of The R&A.
Hailing from Barrika, Spain, Rahm nears the completion of his collegiate career as one of the most accomplished student-athletes to ever don the Maroon and Gold. With eight-career tournament wins to his credit, he is tied for second in ASU program history with Sun Devil Hall of Famer Billy Mayfair, and is still the World Amateur No. 1.
Propelling him even further into Arizona State lore, the Sun Devil is also a first team All-American, the 2015 winner of the prestigious Ben Hogan Award, medalist at the 2014 World Amateur in which he broke a 72-hole scoring record previously held by Jack Nicklaus, back-to-back champion of the Spanish Amateur, and the list goes on.
At the forefront of what was an historic 2014-15 season in which the Arizona State men’s golf team garnered five team victories, the most since 1995-96, Rahm captured four individual titles while posting a program record 69.15 stroke average, marking the third-best in NCAA history.
Rahm has continued to thrive here in the 2015-16 campaign. In six tournament appearances spanning both the fall and spring seasons, the Sun Devil swinger has yet to finish outside of the top-10. During the fall, Rahm posted four top-10 finishes in four events, while garnering his eighth-career tournament win at the Tavistock Invitational. Most recently Rahm carded a three-day, eight-under, 205 good enough for a third-place finish at the 16th annual Prestige at PGA WEST (Feb. 15-17). The senior has now tallied 28 career top-10 finishes.
Rahm has proven time and time again he is capable of excelling at all levels of golf, and is a two-time, top-ten finisher on the PGA Tour. Most notably, the Sun Devil, wearing a #42 Pat Tillman Jersey, fired a 54-hole, 12-under, 272, in front of an eccentric crowd at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, earning him a fifth-place finish (Jan. 29-Feb. 2/2015). Rahm is the second amateur golfer since Justin Rose tied for fourth at the 1998 British Open to accomplish a top-five finish in a PGA Tour event.
The Sun Devils collectively return to action Mar. 9-11 at the Southern Highlands Invitational hosted in Las Vegas, Nevada.