Eric Cole Become Second Oldest Winner Of PGA Tour Rookie Of The Year Award

Eric Cole edged out Ludvig Aberg and two other tournament winners to claim the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year award for 2023.

At 35, Cole is the second-oldest winner of the Arnold Palmer Award, with only a 39-year-old Todd Hamilton being older when he lifted the trophy in 2004.

Like Swedish sensation Aberg, fellow contenders for the award Nico Echavarria and Vincent Norrman also claimed tournament wins in 2023, but Cole's consistency saw him get 51% of the vote from his fellow PGA Tour pros.

Much like Scottie Scheffler, who was voted the 2023 PGA Tour Player of the Year, Cole produced a string of consistent results, becoming the only rookie to make the BMW Championship as he finished 43rd in the FedEx Cup standings.

Cole had six top-five finishes during the season, with only Scheffler (13), Patrick Cantlay (8), Rory McIlroy (8) and Jon Rahm (8) having more - with four of those coming in FedEx Cup Fall tournaments, including in his last three events.

"It's a huge honor to win Rookie of the Year," Cole said as he was awarded the trophy at The Sentry in Hawaii - the PGA Tour's season opener.

"It's an award in golf where you only get one chance to win it, which is a little bit unique. To win that and be voted by my peers is pretty incredible, and it's just a huge honor.

Cole led the PGA Tour in rounds played and also birdies - with his final tally of 554 being 59 more than the next best.

"I got a lot of comments that I played a lot," added Cole. "But I was just so happy to be out on Tour finally and any chance I had to compete on Tour just felt like a huge privilege. 

"I didn't get off to the best start missing some early cuts, but then kind of got it together a little bit and started to play really consistently and pretty well there the last half of the year and kind of capped it off with a pretty good fall, so it was awesome."

It was a long road to the PGA Tour for Cole, who turned pro in 2009 but took seven years to finally get on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he played along with competing on mini-tours.

Cole won 12 Minor League Golf Tour events before getting his breakthrough by finishing third at the 2022 Korn Ferry Championship to finally earn his PGA Tour card.

At the opposite end of the spectrum to Cole, who tried for all those years to get onto the PGA Tour, Aberg made an instant splash when he got on the tour in June.

The young Swede produced a string of fine performances right out of the gate before winning on the DP World Tour, being selected for the European Ryder Cup team and then winning the PGA Tour finale at the RSM Classic in November.

It is Cole who takes the award though, to complete a nice family moment as his mother Laura Baugh won the LPGA Rookie of the Year award in 1973 - with her son following in her footsteps 50 years later.