New England golfer Brad Faxon has won the Golf Writers Association of America award as the most accessible player of the year. In a vote even closer than the one in which former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney edged Rick Santorum in Iowa, Faxon squeaked by Stewart Cink, with Greg Norman finishing third.
Faxon received the ASAPSports/Jim Murray Award for his “cooperation, quotability and accommodation with the media,” according to a GWAA press release. Also honored were LPGA Tour player Sophie Gustafson and Major Dan Rooney.
Gustafson, who has overcome a serious stuttering problem to become No. 48 in the world, picked up the prestigious Ben Hogan Award, which goes to a golfer who is able to stay active in the sport while dealing with a physical handicap or severe illness. Rooney, a former F-16 pilot who flew three combat tours in Iraq and founded Patriot Golf Day and the Folds of Honor Foundation, won the association’s William D. Richardson Award for making an outstanding contribution to golf.
The three honorees will receive their awards at the annual GWAA Awards Dinner in Augusta, Ga., on April 4. The dinner, on the eve of the 2012 Masters tournament, will also honor GWAA Players of the Year Yani Tseng (LPGA), Luke Donald (PGA), and Tom Lehman (Champions Tour).
Faxon cadged his award in one of the closest votes in GWAA history. The Rhode Island native is an eight-time PGA Tour winner and won his first Champions Tour event last fall. In the more than 700 rounds Faxon has played, the GWAA estimated that media members had approached him after some 95 percent of them.
After capturing his first Champions Tour contest — the Insperity Championship in October — a jokester smacked Faxon in the face with a whipped cream pie while the golfer was on air with the Golf Channel. As the GWAA release noted, he entered the media room “still wiping the pie off his face and clothes.”
Faxon and fellow Rhode Islander Billy Andrade won the GWAA’s 1999 Charlie Bartlett Award for their Billy Andrade/BradFaxon Charities for Children, Inc., which has donated more than $8 million to youngsters in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts since its inception in 1991. Faxon was also the recipient of the 2005 Payne Stewart Award.
After his second tour in Iraq, Rooney founded Patriot Golf Day and the Folds of Honor Foundation, which provides scholarships to spouses and children of military members disabled or killed in service. Patriot Golf Day has raised more than id=”mce_marker”2.8 million in its first five years and has awarded more than 2,600 scholarships.
Rooney has received several accolades for his work, including honors as an ABC World News Tonight’s 2008 Person of the Year and People Magazine Hero of the Year. The owner of two golf courses and a PGA of America professional, Rooney has received the White House’s Presidential Volunteer Service Award, the Air National Guard’s Distinguished Service Medal, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and the PGA of America’s first-ever Patriot Award.
Gustafson, who went public last fall about her stuttering, is a five-time tour winner and has been on eight Solheim Cups in her 13-year career. The 38-year-old Swedish golfer would likely receive additional attention for her achievements were she more comfortable in the limelight. Anyone who saw her taped pre-Solheim Cup TV interview with the Golf Channel, in which she took herself “out of my comfort zone,” could not help but be moved by Gustafson’s appearance.
The interview went viral on YouTube and Gustafson received acclaim from all corners of the golf world. “I heard from a lot of friends who said it was great to see, and that I did a good job,” she told Golf Digest Woman’s Stina Sternberg.
Gustafson, who has 28 worldwide wins, told Sternberg why she decided to open up about her stuttering.
“It’s always a bummer during the Solheim Cup because everybody else is doing interviews and press conferences, but no one even bothers asking me if I want to do them anymore,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to try something for this edition.
“I feel like I have a lot to say and can actually be pretty funny,” Gustafson added, “but it’s hard to get it out since I usually keep my mouth shut in public.”
Gustafson, who conceded that talking to the camera provoked more anxiety than competing in the Solheim Cup, said she hoped to do more interviews “if anyone out there would be interested in putting in the time.”
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