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)
Elliott Heath
By
published

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:

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year winners
YearPlayer of the Year
1990Jeff Maggert
1991Tom Lehman
1992John Flannery
1993Sean Murphy
1994Chris Perry
1995Jerry Kelly
1996Stewart Cink
1997Chris Smith
1998Bob Burns
1999Carl Paulson
2000Spike McRoy
2001Chad Campbell
2002Patrick Moore
2003Zach Johnson
2004Jimmy Walker
2005Jason Gore
2006Ken Duke
2007Nick Flanagan
2008Brendon de Jonge
2009Michael Sim
2010Jamie Lovemark
2011JJ Killeen
2012Casey Wittenberg
2013Michael Putnam
2014Carlos Ortiz
2015Patton Kizzire
2016Wesley Bryan
2017Chesson Hadley
2018Sungjae Im
2019Scottie Scheffler
2020-21Stephan Jaeger
2022Justin Suh
2023Ben Kohles
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Korn Ferry Tour Rookie of the Year winners
YearPlayer
2018Sungjae Im
2019Scottie Scheffler
2020-21Greyson Sigg
2022Seonghyeon Kim
2023Adrien Dumont de Chassart
Elliott Heath
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 manages the Golf Monthly news team as well as our large Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. He covered the 2022 Masters from Augusta National as well as five Open Championships on-site including the 150th at St Andrews. His first Open was in 2017 at Royal Birkdale, when he walked inside the ropes with Jordan Spieth during the Texan's memorable Claret Jug triumph. He has played 35 of our Top 100 golf courses, with his favourites being both Sunningdales, Woodhall Spa, Western Gailes, Old Head and Turnberry. He has been obsessed with the sport since the age of 8 and currently plays off of a six handicap. His golfing highlights are making albatross on the 9th hole on the Hotchkin Course at Woodhall Spa, shooting an under-par round, playing in the Aramco Team Series on the Ladies European Tour and making his one and only hole-in-one at the age of 15 - a long time ago now!

Elliott is currently playing:

Driver: Titleist TSR4

3 wood: Titleist TSi2

Hybrids: Titleist 816 H1

Irons: Mizuno MP5 5-PW

Wedges: Cleveland RTX ZipCore 50, 54, 58

Putter: Odyssey White Hot OG #5

Ball: Srixon Z Star XV

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