Rory McIlroy has been named the 2019 PGA Tour Player of the Year as voted by the tour’s membership for the 2018-19 season.
McIlroy will receive the Jack Nicklaus Award for winning the accolade for the third time in his career (2012, 2014, 2019). He was selected for the honour over Brooks Koepka, Matt Kuchar and Xander Schauffele.
Meanwhile, Sungjae Im was voted 2019 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year and will receive the Arnold Palmer Award, renamed in 2019 as a tribute to its namesake’s influence on countless young players and a fitting honour for its recipients. The other nominees were Cameron Champ, Adam Long, Collin Morikawa and Matthew Wolff.
PGA Tour members who played at least 15 official FedExCup events during the 2018-19 season were eligible to vote. The balloting process ended on September 6.
McIlroy, 30, of Holywood, Northern Ireland, won the FedExCup for the second time (2016, 2019), becoming just the second player to win the season-long race multiple times (joining Tiger Woods), and the first player to win The Players Championship and the FedExCup in the same season. With three wins (The Players, RBC Canadian Open, Tour Championship), McIlroy matched Koepka for the most wins this season and marked the third time he collected three or more victories in a single season.
McIlroy also won the Byron Nelson Award for Adjusted Scoring Average (69.057) for the third time in his career and led the PGA Tour in Top-10s (14) and Strokes Gained: Total (2.551)
Im, a 21-year-old native of Jeju, South Korea, was the only rookie to advance to the Tour Championship and finished the season tied for 19th in the FedExCup standings. With his Rookie of the Year honors, Im joins Stewart Cink (1996-97) as the only players to be named the Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year and PGA Tour Rookie of the Year in consecutive seasons.
For the season, Im made 26 cuts in 35 starts, becoming the first rookie in the FedExCup era to play 35 or more events. He recorded seven top-10s, highlighted by three top-fives, with his best finish of the season coming at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, where he tied for third.
