Houston (AP) — Tiger Woods was voted male player of the year by the Golf
Writers Association of America on Thursday by an overwhelming margin
over Steve Stricker, with most ballots returned after he became
embroiled in a sex scandal.
It was the 10th time Woods has won the award in his 13 years as a pro.
LPGA
Tour rookie Jiyai Shin was voted female player of the year over Lorena
Ochoa, while Loren Roberts won the senior player award.
Woods,
forced out for eight months with major knee surgery, returned to win
six times on the PGA Tour. He captured the FedEx Cup, along with the
PGA Tour money title and the Vardon Trophy for the lowest scoring
average.
He received 168 votes (84 percent), while Stricker had 20 votes and PGA champion Y.E. Yang received 13 votes.
Voting
for the GWAA awards began three days before news of Woods' traffic
accident outside his Florida home, the first sign of trouble that led
the world's No. 1 player to eventually admit to infidelity.
Just
under half the ballots were cast before the Nov. 27 accident. Balloting
closed at midnight on Dec. 11, the day Woods announced he was taking an
indefinite leave from golf to work on saving his marriage. During the
two-week period, the voting trend did not change.
Shin won three
times and was the LPGA rookie of the year. She had a chance to win the
LPGA player of the year until Ochoa beat her by one point in a race
that went down to the final round at the LPGA Tour Championship. Shin
won the money title and was second in scoring.
She received 105 votes (52 percent) to 85 votes for Ochoa and 11 votes for Cristie Kerr.
Roberts'
three victories included the Senior British Open at Sunningdale, and he
won the Charles Schwab Cup for the second time in three years. He
finished second on the money list behind Bernhard Langer, who won four
times. Roberts received 111 votes (55 percent), with Langer getting 78
votes and Fred Funk getting 10 votes.
The players will be honored April 7 in Augusta, Ga., at the GWAA's annual awards dinner.