Every Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year Winner Since 1990

Five winners of the Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year award have gone on to win Majors

Scottie Scheffler holds the Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year award
Scottie Scheffler won the Player of the Year and the Rookie of the Year titles on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019
(Image credit: Getty Images)

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.

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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:

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year winners
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
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Korn Ferry Tour Rookie of the Year winners
Year Player
2018 Sungjae Im
2019 Scottie Scheffler
2020-21 Greyson Sigg
2022 Seonghyeon Kim
2023 Adrien Dumont de Chassart
Elliott Heath
News Editor

Elliott Heath is our News Editor and has been with Golf Monthly since early 2016 after graduating with a degree in Sports Journalism. He covered the 2022 and 2025 Masters from Augusta National and was there by the 18th green to watch Rory McIlroy complete the career grand slam. He has also covered five Open Championships on-site including the 150th at St Andrews.