FORT WORTH, Texas (March 5, 2020) – The Ben Hogan Trophy Award Foundation has announced that Florida freshman Ricky Castillo has been voted the Ben Hogan Award’s February Golfer of the Month.
Castillo, who was previously a finalist for the August honor, won both collegiate events he entered during February to collect his first career college victories. Over his six rounds, he carried a 66.50 scoring average with a low round of 63.
The native of Yorba Linda, Calif., started with a win at the Sea Best Invitational, shooting an 8-under par 202 over 54 holes. He followed that up with an eight-shot victory at the Florida Gators Invitational with a score of 197 (-13).
Castillo is currently ranked second in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and 15th in the Scratch Players World Amateur Ranking. Last month, he was named to the Ben Hogan Award watch list, one of just three freshmen to be honored.
Fifteen total ballots were cast, with 12 coming from members of the Hogan Trophy Foundation and Friends of Golf and three social media fan ballots. The other finalists were juniors John Pak of Florida State and Davis Thompson of Georgia. Castillo won the Instagram vote, while Thompson claimed both the Twitter and Facebook votes.
In line with the yearly Ben Hogan Award, voters consider all college, amateur and professional event results. Winning a monthly award is not a prerequisite to be named a Ben Hogan Award semifinalist, finalist or winner.
Previous monthly winners include: Georgia Tech’s Andy Ogletree (August), Baylor’s Cooper Dossey (September), Rutgers’ Chris Gotterup and BYU’s Peter Kuest (October), Wake Forest’s Parker Gillam (November), Georgia Tech’s Noah Norton (December) and Pepperdine’s Sahith Theegala (January).
–www.TheBenHoganAward.org—
About the Ben Hogan Award
The Ben Hogan Award presented by Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta) is given annually to the top men’s NCAA Division I, II or III, NAIA or NJCAA college golfer taking into account all collegiate and amateur competitions during a 12-month period from June to May. The Ben Hogan Trophy was first issued by the Friends of Golf at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles in 1990 and also included academic achievement in its original list of standards. In 2002, the Ben Hogan Award moved to Fort Worth, Texas, and revised its criteria to its current standard of honoring the outstanding amateur collegiate golfer.
Ben Hogan Award winners at Colonial have combined to accumulate 40 PGA TOUR victories and more than $240 million in prize money. Two winners are currently ranked in the top 10 in the Official World Golf Rankings, No. 3 Jon Rahm (2015-16) and No. 6 Patrick Cantlay (2012). Other recipients include: Ricky Barnes (2003), Matt Every (2006), Rickie Fowler (2008), Doug Ghim (2018), Bill Haas (2004), Viktor Hovland (2019), Chris Kirk (2007), Hunter Mahan (2003), Maverick McNealy (2017), Ryan Moore (2005), Patrick Rodgers (2014), Kyle Stanley (2009), Nick Taylor (2010), D.J. Trahan (2002), Peter Uihlein (2011) and Chris Williams (2013).
