SAN DIEGO – San Diego State men's golf recruit Callum Bruce (Banff, Scotland) has been named to the 2019 Ben Hogan Award Watch List in a joint announcement Wednesday by the Hogan Trophy Award Foundation, the Friends of Golf (FOG) and the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA).
The Ben Hogan Award presented by Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta) is given annually to the top men's NCAA Division I, II or III, NAIA or NJCAA college golfer, taking into account all collegiate and amateur competitions during a 12-month period from June to May.
A sophomore at Midland College in Texas, Bruce is among a group of 28 initial candidates for this year's Ben Hogan Award determined by a selection committee comprised of leaders in professional, amateur and collegiate golf. The list of 10 semifinalists, which could include individuals not on the current list, will be revealed on Wednesday, April 17. From that group, three finalists will be chosen to attend a black-tie dinner on Monday, May 20 at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, where the winner will be crowned prior to the start of the PGA Tour's Charles Schwab Challenge.
The lone junior college competitor on the list, Bruce joins a distinguished group of 14 Division I seniors, eight juniors, four sophomores and two freshmen. A total of four conferences have at least five golfers on the watch list, led by the ACC with seven. The other leagues with multiple candidates include the SEC (6), Big 12 (5) and Pac-12 (5).
In 2018, Bruce received the Jack Nicklaus Player of the Year Award by the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) as a freshman to go with first-team PING All-America honors. He was also presented with the Phil Mickelson Award as the top NJCAA Division I freshman after recording a 71.18 scoring average while capturing four individual tournament titles, four runner-up finishes and four other top-10 placements.
In addition, Bruce was an all-Western Junior College Conference selection during the 2017-18 campaign after helping the Midland team secure its 15th league championship in program history and a third-place standing at the NJCAA Division I Championships. At that tournament, the native Scot tied for second individually, carding a four-day total of 9-under 279, highlighted by a final-round 68.
Entering the spring, Bruce occupies the second spot in the latest Golfstat individual rankings, while his Midland team is ranked second as a team after winning the Cactus Thaw tournament earlier this week in El Paso, Texas.
The Ben Hogan Award, which was first issued in 1990 and also included academic achievement in its original list of standards, revised its criteria for the 2001-02 collegiate season to its current standard of honoring the outstanding amateur collegiate golfer.
Since that time, the winners have included D.J. Trahan (Clemson, 2002), Ricky Barnes (Arizona, 2003), Hunter Mahan (Oklahoma State, 2003), Bill Haas (Wake Forest, 2004), Ryan Moore (UNLV, 2005), Matt Every (Florida, 2006), Chris Kirk (Georgia, 2007), Rickie Fowler (Oklahoma State, 2008), Kyle Stanley (Clemson, 2009), Nick Taylor (Washington, 2010), Peter Uihlein (Oklahoma State, 2011), Patrick Cantlay (UCLA, 2012), Chris Williams (Washington, 2013) and Patrick Rodgers (Stanford, 2014), Jon Rahm (Arizona State, 2015-16), Maverick McNealy (Stanford, 2017) and Doug Ghim (Texas, 2018).
Former Aztec star Xander Schauffele was an early candidate for the Ben Hogan Award during his senior campaign in 2015.
San Diego State resumes its spring schedule next week when it competes in The Prestige at PGA West, Feb. 18-20, in La Quinta, Calif.
2019 Ben Hogan Award Watch List
Callum Bruce, Midland College (SDSU signee)
Zach Bauchou, Oklahoma State
Quade Cummins, Oklahoma
Chandler Eaton, Duke
Steven Fisk, Georgia Southern
Stephen Franken, NC State
Luis Gagne, LSU
Will Gordon, Vanderbilt
Will Grimmer, Ohio State
Cole Hammer, Texas
Viktor Hovland, Oklahoma State
Philip Knowles, North Florida
Peter Kuest, BYU
Brandon Mancheno, Auburn
Collin Morikawa, California
Bryson Nimmer, Clemson
Chandler Phillips, Texas A&M
Trent Phillips, Georgia
Peng Pichaikool, Mississippi State
Isaiah Salinda, Stanford
Matthias Schmid, Louisville
Luke Schniederjans, Georgia Tech
Alex Smalley, Duke
Tyler Strafaci, Georgia Tech
Justin Suh, Southern California
Matthew Wolff, Oklahoma State
Brandon Wu, Stanford
Chun An Yu, Arizona State
Callum Bruce Named to Ben Hogan Award Watch List
