June 2, 2013
DUBLIN, Ohio - Sophomore Michael Kim became the first Cal men's golfer to ever win national player of the year honors when he was named Sunday by the Golf Coaches Association of America as the Division I recipient of the 2013 Jack Nicklaus Award. The Nicklaus Award recognizes the top players at the Division I, II, III, NAIA and NJCAA levels.
Since 1988, the award for the GCAA Collegiate Players of the year has been named after Nicklaus, a Big Ten and NCAA champion at The Ohio State University.
Kim was presented with the honor by Nicklaus at an awards ceremony Sunday during the final round of the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide Insurance at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, just outside of Nicklaus' hometown of Columbus.
"To be named the winner of the Jack Nicklaus Award is the biggest honor of my career and to be at the award ceremony with Mr. Nicklaus there was truly amazing," Kim said. "Any award with Mr. Nicklaus' name on it is a huge award and the fact that my name is on it too is an unbelievable feeling."
"It's a tremendous honor for all of the young men honored here today on behalf of Jack Nicklaus, who was the greatest player to ever play the game," head coach Steve Desmione said. "In Michael's case to be honored as the Division I Player of the Year is an amazing and incredible honor for him. It's very well deserved. It was really fun to be a part of this, and I know Michael enjoyed it also. Any time you get a chance to win an award named after Jack Nicklaus and then get the opportunity to spend time with him you know you must have done something really well. Michael had the best season of the year in college golf and this award is recognition of that."
Kim previously earned Division I PING First-Team All-American, All-West Region and Pac-12 Men's Golfer of the Year honors for his performance during the 2012-13 campaign. He headed into the NCAA Championship, where Cal was a semifinalist for the second consecutive season, as the nation's No. 1-ranked player according to both Golfweek and Golfstat. Kim is also the top candidate on the most recent watch list for the Haskins Award presented to the nation's top collegiate player by Golfweek. In addition, he was one of three finalists for The Ben Hogan Award given to the top amateur player among collegiate golfers. Kim was individual medalist in 2012-13 a single-season school-record four times (Isleworth Collegiate Invitational, Arizona Intercollegiate, John A. Burns Intercollegiate, Southern Highlands Collegiate Masters). He totaled seven top-five finishes, also tying for second at both the Gopher Invitational and Western Intercollegiate while tying for fifth at the Alister MacKenzie Invitational. Kim was in the top 10 in 10 of 14 stroke-play events and posted an adjusted stroke-play average of 70.14 over 43 rounds to earn the Golfstat Cup for the lowest adjusted stroke-play average in men's collegiate golf. In addition, Kim was the No. 1-ranked player for Team USA in the final 2012-13 Palmer Cup Rankings and will play June 7-9 in the Palmer Cup.
Cal fell to Illinois, 3-2, in the NCAA Championship semifinals Saturday to end a historic season in which Cal won 11 of its 14 tournaments to set a modern-era NCAA single-season win record previously established by Oklahoma State in 1985-86. Over the last two seasons, Cal has captured 17 of its 28 events and finished in the top five in each of them. Cal was the nation's No. 1 ranked team heading into the NCAA Championship and had been in the spot since shortly after winning its first two tournaments of the campaign.
The semifinal loss left the Bears still looking to advance to the match-play finals for the first time in school history. Cal has a lone NCAA title to its credit in 2004 when the crown was decided with 72 holes of stroke play.
In addition to Kim, other Jack Nicklaus Award honorees from the Division II, III, NAIA and NJCAA levels were Abilene Christian's Alex Carpenter, Brad Shigezawa of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS), Oklahoma City's Sondre Ronold and Jake Argento of South Mountain Community College.
