There's no way Sean Elliott could pack light for his impromptu vacation.
Elliott, a rising senior golfer at Dalton State College, packed his golf clubs, a couple golf shirts and his best coat and tie for a flight to Columbus, Ohio, the site of PGA Tour's Memorial Tournament hosted by Jack Nicklaus.
Elliott wants to look good when he meets one of the greatest golfers of all time Sunday and accepts an award named in Nicklaus' honor.
The Golf Coaches Association of America announced Friday that Elliott had earned the Jack Nicklaus National Player of the Year Award for the NAIA. Awards are also presented to the top golfers in all three NCAA divisions as well as the National Junior College Association of America.
"It's been an awesome experience to win this and do this at Muirfield," Elliott said over the phone from Ohio. "It goes to show that hard work pays off. It's just a beginning."
Elliott earned the Arnold Palmer Award as medalist in the NAIA national championship tournament at LPGA International's Hills Course last month in Daytona Beach, Fla. Along the way, Elliott broke a 32-year-old record for 54 holes by shooting a 202. He followed that by breaking a 60-year-old record by eight strokes for the low 72-hole score with a 272.
"It's incredible what kind of season he put together," Dalton State coach Ben Rickett said over the phone after leaving Muirfield Village, where they watched some of the PGA Tour tournament from the clubhouse, including Tiger Woods making the turn, and greeted Rickett's friend Harris English.
"He had the goal of being conference player of the year, but about two weeks before the conference tournament it looked like one of two other guys were going to win," Rickett said. "So we reassessed his goals and set the goal to be national player of the year."
He did it.
Other accolades for Elliott from this past season include winning the Southern States Athletic Conference tournament with a 200 -- including a 29 on his final back nine -- and being named a first-team All-Conference player and first-team NAIA All-American.
"I worked a lot on my short game in the spring," Elliott said. "The hole kept seeming to get bigger and bigger."
The impromptu vacation -- he learned of the award earlier in the week but kept it confidential until Friday's announcement -- will be a working vacation.
Elliott will compete today against the four other Nicklaus Award winners in an 18-hole tournament. The medalist earns an exemption in the PGA Tour's Barbasol Championship.
Then on Sunday, he'll meet Nicklaus and be one of five college golfers in the country accepting an award named for the Golden Bear.
"Even though he wasn't in the generation of golfers I grew up following, I know what Mr. Nicklaus has achieved," Elliott said. "It's going to be hard to shake his hand and have words come out of my mouth."
Contact David Uchiyama at duchiyama@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6484. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/UchiyamaCTFP