3 golfers who missed out on 2023 Rookie of the Year nominations
The PGA Tour has announced four nominees for the Rookie of the Year award and five nominees for the Player of the Year award for the year 2023. All the candidates were selected by the Player Directors and the Player Advisory Council (PAC) members, based on their performance in the 2022-23 season.
Winning the end-of-the-season award is a huge privilege for a rookie player. The four candidates nominated for the award, which is also known as the Arnold Palmer Award, are Ludvig Aberg, Eric Cole, Nico Echavarria, and Vincent Norrman.
32 rookie players entered the PGA Tour in the 2022-23 season, and the selection of the candidates must have been difficult for the authorities. Well, without any further ado, let's look at the three rookie players who could have been nominated for the 2023 Rookie of the Year award.
Three players who could have been nominated for the 2023 Rookie of the Year award
3) Thomas Detry
The 30-year-old Belgian golfer qualified for the PGA Tour 2022-23 season after his performance at the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour Finals. He could have been a breakout star but a lack of wins and top-10 finishes cost him that place.
He has played in 29 tournaments this season and could not make it inside the cut line in just five of them. He finished inside the leaderboard's top 25 ten times, including three top 10 finishes. His best performance came at the 2022 Butterfield Bermuda Championship where he ended up as the solo runner-up.
Thomas Detry finished on the 64th rank in the FedEx Cup fall standings. He has earned a sum of $2,481,116 as official money.
2) Taylor Montgomery
The 28-year-old American golfer from Las Vegas, Nevada earned his PGA Tour entry after finishing inside the top 50 in the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season. The reasons behind his exclusion from the 2023 Rookie of the Year award nominations could be the lack of wins and more missed-cut events.
In the 2022-23 season, he has played 32 tournaments and missed to make it inside the cutline in just nine of them. He recorded 13 top 25 finishes this season which includes five top 10 finishes. His best performance came at the 2022 Fortinet Championship where he ended up on the solo third rank on the leaderboard.
Taylor Montgomery has finished on the 55th rank in the FedEx Cup fall standings. He has accumulated a wealth of $3,079,378 through tournaments' prize money.
1) Akshay Bhatia
One of the most deserving guys to have been nominated for the 2023 Rookie of the Year award could have been Akshay Bhatia. The 21-year-old American rookie on the PGA Tour was a breakout star in the 2022-23 season. He recorded his first title win on the Tour after defeating Patrick Rodgers in the 2023 Barracuda Championship.
In the 2022-23 season, Bhatia played in 26 events and missed the cut in just seven of them. He finished inside the top 10 on five occasions.
Akshay Bhatia finished on 91st rank in the FedEx Cup fall standings and has amassed a wealth of $2,346,959 this season on the PGA Tour.