KAPALUA, Hawaii — Scottie Scheffler has been voted PGA Tour player of the year for 2023 over Masters champion Jon Rahm, a player vote that raises questions of whether Rahm was penalized for defecting to the LIV Golf League.
Scheffler is the first back-to-back winner of the annual honor since Tiger Woods repeated in 2006-07. The No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking, the 27-year-old American had the best statistical season since Woods by leading the tour in all the important categories from the tee to the green, along with scoring.
He had the seventh-lowest adjust scoring average (68.63) in PGA Tour history — the top six belong to Woods — and finished out of the top 10 only six times in 23 tournaments during a season that began in September 2022. At one point, Scheffler went 18 consecutive starts where his worst finish was 12th.
“Anything that you receive voted on by your peers is very special to me, and being able to go home with this trophy two years in a row now is very special,” Scheffler said. “I think the body of work I put in last year … I was very proud of that consistency.”
What he lacked, compared with Rahm, was winning.