![\"2007041127\"\/](\"https:\/\/golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com\/content\/dam\/images\/golfdigest\/fullset\/2026\/8\/GettyImages-2007041127.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.966.644.suffix\/1787157154103.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nWhile PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp continues his reorganization of the schedule and competition model, he might also consider an idea that CBS golf host Jim Nantz has recommended for elevating the Jack Nicklaus Award for PGA Tour Player of the Year.<\/p>\n
To add another layer to the Tour Championship, Nantz would like to see the tour take a page out of the NFL playbook\u2014something Rolapp should like, having been one of the chief business leaders for the league before taking the reins of the tour as CEO and commissioner as well. He suggests that the Jack Nicklaus Award be presented at the season-ending event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to propose as we\u2019re in all of this restructuring that the PGA Tour Player of the Year needs to be voted on just like you vote the MVP in the Super Bowl and you find out on the field five minutes later,\u201d Nantz said Wednesday during a zoom call promoting CBS coverage of the FedEx Cup Playoffs through next week\u2019s Tour Championship in Atlanta. \u201cThat award needs to be given out at the end of the last event.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the most anticlimactic presentation of something that\u2019s meaningful of any sport I can think of,\u201d he continued. \u201cI don\u2019t even know where it happens, in a room in New York or something. It\u2019s in the middle of a football season. It\u2019s on a Tuesday over lunch, and there\u2019s about five people to hear about it. It has no fanfare, no fanfare for something that we\u2019re actually discussing here more than anyone will discuss it when it comes out in late September or October. It needs to have a life \u2026 with a light shining on it. The player of the year, we\u2019re talking about it, and we\u2019ll go through the next two weeks and we can speculate all we want, but until somebody comes to New York or comes to Ponte Vedra in December, November, whatever it is, and then you happen to go through your daily news source and you find it about the 20th story down.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we need to move this thing while we\u2019re in this world of new architecture for the PGA Tour. Let\u2019s put this thing where it belongs in front of the viewers, the people that are with it every single week. Let them have a chance to see somebody get awarded the player of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, that would require an immediate vote by tour members, who determine the winner of the award. And Nantz, who also is lead play-by-play announcer for CBS\u2019 NFL coverage, says that should be no obstacle.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Perry Knotts<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be done. Absolutely,\u201d Nantz averred. \u201cI mean, we do it at a Super Bowl with 700 credentialed media members there [voting]. And I\u2019ve been down on that platform [for the trophy ceremony] and I\u2019m told five minutes after calling the game that, oh, by the way, the MVP is so-and-so. Well, let\u2019s get our golf MVP before the world so we can see it and appreciate who it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it. It sounds great, especially if you think about if Scottie [Scheffler] finds a way to win it again, it\u2019s going to be five in a row, which ties another Tiger [Woods] record,\u201d chimed in lead analyst Trevor Immelman, who along with on-course reporter Dottie Pepper joined Nantz on the call. \u201cThat is worth shouting from the rooftops about.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to suggest that Immelman thinks Scheffler, who has two wins and five runner-up finishes as part of another consistent year, is a lock for the honor. The World No. 1 is one of several strong candidates, including multiple winners Matt Fitzpatrick and Chris Gotterup, who have three victories apiece, and two-time champions Wyndham Clark, who won the U.S. Open, and Cameron Young, who took the Players Championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the most wide open it\u2019s been in a little while,\u201d Immelman, the former Masters champion, said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of fun for an extra layer of storytelling for us over the next two weeks as we discuss that and see these guys fight it out, because you\u2019ve got probably five guys making a run at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, to me, the word to remember is the word \u2018year.\u2019 It\u2019s a full body of work for the year,\u201d Pepper said. \u201cAnd right now, to me, Scottie\u2019s done that, but needs to finish it in comparison to, you mentioned Matt Fitzpatrick with three wins and Gotterup with three wins. And while they\u2019ve both been very consistent and gotten it across the line more than Scottie has, you cannot argue with his [Scheffler\u2019s] consistency from top to bottom over the entire body of work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s Scottie with a sizable lead, but not all precincts are reporting,\u201d Nantz added, making an analogy to political election results while adding another name to the ballot. \u201cRight now 67 percent of the precincts reporting. Scottie is the leader, but it\u2019s too early to call it. I think if Rory [McIlroy] went win-win and had two of the three legs of the playoffs and had a green jacket and was the FedEx Cup champion, that sounds like a player of the year to me. And I think the only other player you could say that about would be Fitzpatrick. With all of his wins, if he went win-win, it\u2019d be a pretty compelling case based on all of his number of wins. If he went win only in Atlanta, I think that\u2019s a close call between he and Scottie.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike the past few years, the race for player of the year is going down to the wire. In future years, maybe the trophy will be handed out immediately after the last putt drops.<\/p>\n
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp continues his reorganization of the schedule and competition model, he might also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[4225,64,63,138747,593,85],"class_list":["post-861162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf-digest","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}