Alabama Men’s Golf Sweeps SEC Postseason Awards

The University of Alabama’s top-ranked golf team swept the 2014 SEC Men’s Golf Awards the Southeastern Conference has announced.

True freshman Robby Shelton of Wilmer, Ala., was named the SEC Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year while Cory Whitsett was selected as the Scholar-Athlete of the Year and Jay Seawell the Coach of the Year. It is the third straight year and fourth overall for Seawell to earn SEC Coach of the Year accolades while a Shelton is the Crimson Tide’s third straight SEC Player of the Year (Justin Thomas, 2012 and Cory Whitsett, 2013).

Alabama also had a school-record four players garner first-team All-SEC with Shelton, Bobby Wyatt, Trey Mullinax and Whitsett all selected. The Tide had three first-team players in each of the last two years for a total of 10 first-team honorees in the last three years.

Seawell’s team captured its third straight SEC Championship at the Sea Island Golf Club just over a week ago and has seven victories in 10 events this year and 14 wins in its last 18 events (spring of 2013).

Shelton is the consensus No. 1 player in the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index and the Golfstat.com Head-to-Head Player rankings. He currently boasts the lowest scoring average in school history at 70.10 and -.90 strokes below par per round. He has wins at the Olympia Fields Fighting Illini Invitational and the Puerto Rico Classic. Shelton has finished in the top 10 in seven of 10 events with 22 of his 30 rounds at par or lower. He also was named to the Freshman All-SEC team.

The SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors is the second straight for Whitsett. The native of Houston graduated last Saturday with a degree in business and a 4.0 grade-point average. Whitsett is a two-time NCAA Elite 89 Award winner with the highest GPA at the NCAA Championships and a first team Academic All-American. He also becomes the first player in Alabama history to be selected first team All-SEC in all four years of his career. Whitsett has a 71.39 career scoring average with five victories and 23 top-10 finishes.

Wyatt, a native of Mobile, Ala., is fresh off of earning SEC medalist honors in record-setting fashion at Sea Island, shooting 18-under-par 192. He becomes the fourth player in school history to be named first team All-SEC three times, joining Whitsett, Bud Cauley and Steve Lowery. Wyatt has a 70.48 scoring average this season and nine top-10 finishes in 11 events this year.

Mullinax, from Birmingham, Ala., who was named to the United States Palmer Cup team last month, earned his second All-SEC honor while being named to the first team for the first time. He won the Isleworth Collegiate Invitational in the fall and has a 71.03 scoring average with six top-10 finishes and 19 rounds of par or lower.

Alabama will be the No. 1 seed at the NCAA Auburn Regional, which begins Thursday, May 15, at the Auburn University Club. The top five teams at each of the six regional sites around the country will advance to the NCAA Championships May 23-28, at Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan.