Golf writers honour Harrington, Ochoa and Haas

The awards keep flowing for Ireland’s Padraig Harrington. The reigning British Open and PGA Championship champion has added to his vast 2008 honours list after being named Player of the Year for men by the Golf Writers Association of America.

Harrington has already won the prestigious PGA Tour Player of the Year Award as well as the European Tour’s Shot of the Year.

His newest award certainly ranks among the most prestigious and most respected of honours because it is given by those who are among the fiercest critics of golfers – the media.

He also ended world number one Tiger Woods’ three-year winning streak, garning 184 votes to 58 for Woods. Fijian Vijay Singh collected three votes.

Harrington has had a stellar year by successfully defending his Open title and then battling injury to win at the PGA Championship.

The 37-year-old became the first European to win two straight majors in the same season and fifth golfer in the past 20 years to double up in majors over a calendar year.

Woods, who won the US Open in an epic 19-hole play-off, was unable to play in the final two majors of the year but there is no denying that Harrington fully deserves his latest accolade: Tiger, or no Tiger.

Mexico’s Lorena Ochoa was voted women’s Player of the Year by the Golf Writers Association, thanks to her seven victories in this year’s LPGA Tour and a second major title at the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

She has taken over as the successor to Sweden’s newly retired Annika Sorenstam. Ochoa has held on to her world number one ranking and led the tour’s money list with more than $2.7 million in prize money.

She collected 232 votes to easily beat second-placed Paula Creamer, who gained 13 votes. In third place was Taiwan’s Tseng Yani, who received three votes.

Jay Haas took the honours in the senior category to become the first player to win three straight awards.

Haas won twice on the Senior PGA Tour this season, including the Senior PGA Championship. He finished second on the money list behind Bernhard Langer.

His victory was closer than for the other categories as he earned 115 votes to Langer’s 79. Eduardo Romero was third on 50 votes.


One Response to “Golf writers honour Harrington, Ochoa and Haas”

  1. It could’nt happen to a nicer guy.

Leave a Reply