(Portions of this story courtesy of Centre College)
DUBLIN, Ohio - Thanks to his NCAA Division III individual national championship, recent Centre College graduate Chris Morris was named a 2011 Jack Nicklaus Award recipient as the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) Division III Collegiate Player of the Year.
A native of Maysville, Ky., Morris helped lead the Centre men's golf team to one of their best seasons in school history this spring. After the Division III victory, he received the Arnold Palmer Award presented by Callaway for being the national championship medalist, and he became a PING First Team All-American for his performance.
The victory was one of eight for Morris in 2010-11. During the season, he was also named a Cleveland Golf/Srixon All-America Scholar, a Division III PING All-South Region Team member and an All-SCAC First-Team member. As well, he was selected as the Co-Male Student Athlete of the Year at Centre.
Morris becomes just the second player in SCAC history to win the Jack Nicklaus Award. Oglethorpe University's Trent Erb won the award in 2004. Morris also becomes the first SCAC student-athlete to win a national player of the year award since Colorado College's Melanie Auguste won the Josten's Award as the Division III Women's Basketball Player of the Year in 2009. He becomes the 15th national player of the year in CAC/SCAC history.
The Jack Nicklaus Award was created in 1988 by Big Ten and NCAA Champion Jack Nicklaus. Morris, along with fellow award recipients Patrick Cantlay (UCLA), Alex Carpenter (Abilene Christian), Oscar Stark (Oklahoma Christian) and Brandt Garon (Meridian Community College), was honored during the final round of the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, just outside of Nicklaus' hometown of Columbus.
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