GWAA players of the year for 2022: Scottie Scheffler, Lydia Ko and Steven Alker

The golf writers have spoken: Scottie Scheffler, Lydia Ko and Steven Alker are the 2022 players of the year.

Scheffler was tabbed as Male Player of the Year, Ko as Female Player of the Year and Alker as Senior Player of the Year, as voted on by members of the Golf Writers Association of America. It’s Ko’s second such honor after first winning in 2015 while Scheffler and Alker are first-timers.

Scheffler won four times last year, including the Masters, while finishing second in the FedExCup earning the PGA Tour Player of the Year award. He received 49.2% of the vote over Rory McIlroy and Cameron Smith.

“It was a great year. I’m very pleased with how the year went,” Scheffler said. “To win an award like that, to be recognized as the best player for the year, is really special, and something I’ll look back on in my career.”

Ko captured three titles, including the CME Group Tour Championship, and grabbed both Rolex Player of the Year and Vare Trophy honors. She earned a whopping 79.5% of the vote.

“What an honor to be awarded the GWAA’s Player of the Year,” Ko said. “It means so much to me to win it for a second time. What an amazing year 2022 turned out to be. So many cool things happened in my life, culminating in my wedding. While nothing could be more special than that, my golf was pretty good, too! I am truly thankful to everyone with the GWAA for recognizing me with this prestigious award.”

Alker, 51, finished in the top 3 in 13 of his 23 starts, won four times and captured the season-long Charles Schwab Cup. He got 50.3% of the vote.

“That’s pretty neat, especially with the company that I’m in, with all the names (of past winners),” Alker said. “Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Hale Irwin, Bernhard [Langer], that’s pretty neat. Look, the awards that come along with a season like that are amazing. It’s fantastic. Obviously, I had time to sit down just before Christmas and kind of think about really what I’d done. I’m pleased and proud of myself for the consistency that I had throughout the year. That was the big thing. Padraig put a little pressure on me there at the end and I still had some work to do there at the Schwab Cup Championship. There were some big wins in there, so it was amazing.”

The winners will be honored April 5 during the ISPS Handa/GWAA Awards Dinner in Augusta, Georgia.