The Korn Ferry Tour is the PGA Tour’s official feeder circuit, with 30 players graduating each year onto the top men’s tour.
The Korn Ferry Tour, which has been known as the Ben Hogan, Nike, Buy.com, Nationwide and Web.com Tour through the years, has been a breeding ground for up-and-coming players since 1989 and a chance for them to cut their teeth before moving up to the PGA Tour.
The Player of the Year award dates back to 1990 and winning the Korn Ferry Tour POY title shows that a player has real potential to be a proven winner in the big leagues. While the list isn’t quite a who’s-who of the golfing world, there are a number of Major champions to be crowned Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year through the years.
Out of the 35 Players of the Year, five have gone on to win Majors – Tom Lehman, Stewart Cink, Zach Johnson, Jimmy Walker and Scottie Scheffler.
Stewart Cink (1996, 1997), Sungjae Im (2018, 2019) and Scottie Scheffler (2019, 2020) have all gone to win the Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year awards and then the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year titles in successive years, too.
Im and Scheffler also won the KFT Player and Rookie of the Year awards in the same seasons – with the rookie award only starting in 2018.
Like the PGA Tour Player of the Year award, the Korn Ferry Tour’s award is also called the Jack Nicklaus Award and voted for by the members.
Take a look at the winners through the years:
| Year | Player of the Year |
|---|---|
| 1990 | Jeff Maggert |
| 1991 | Tom Lehman |
| 1992 | John Flannery |
| 1993 | Sean Murphy |
| 1994 | Chris Perry |
| 1995 | Jerry Kelly |
| 1996 | Stewart Cink |
| 1997 | Chris Smith |
| 1998 | Bob Burns |
| 1999 | Carl Paulson |
| 2000 | Spike McRoy |
| 2001 | Chad Campbell |
| 2002 | Patrick Moore |
| 2003 | Zach Johnson |
| 2004 | Jimmy Walker |
| 2005 | Jason Gore |
| 2006 | Ken Duke |
| 2007 | Nick Flanagan |
| 2008 | Brendon de Jonge |
| 2009 | Michael Sim |
| 2010 | Jamie Lovemark |
| 2011 | JJ Killeen |
| 2012 | Casey Wittenberg |
| 2013 | Michael Putnam |
| 2014 | Carlos Ortiz |
| 2015 | Patton Kizzire |
| 2016 | Wesley Bryan |
| 2017 | Chesson Hadley |
| 2018 | Sungjae Im |
| 2019 | Scottie Scheffler |
| 2020-21 | Stephan Jaeger |
| 2022 | Justin Suh |
| 2023 | Ben Kohles |
| Year | Player |
|---|---|
| 2018 | Sungjae Im |
| 2019 | Scottie Scheffler |
| 2020-21 | Greyson Sigg |
| 2022 | Seonghyeon Kim |
| 2023 | Adrien Dumont de Chassart |
..
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