For the third-straight year, a Winthrop men’s golf alum has won the South Carolina Golf Association’s Player of the Year award.
Christian Sease, a member of the Winthrop men’s golf team from 2012-2017, was recognized by the SCGA as its 2021 Player of the Year on Jan. 8.
“It was awesome,” Sease said. “Most golfers kind of strive to do that, to be the top one that year. It was always a goal of mine, especially from a young age.”
Sease is the third Winthrop alum in three years to receive the award, following Kyle Bearden in 2020 and Jordan Sease in 2019.
“It speaks a lot to the caliber of players we’ve recruited and had in our program,” said Winthrop men’s golf coach Kevin Pendley. “They’re proud Winthrop alums and it speaks to the character of the people, that they’ve continued to work hard at their games even post-college.”
According to Pendley, Christian Sease wasn’t recruited much coming out of high school. He had a connection to Winthrop (his cousin Jordan who played for Winthrop a few years earlier) and the Eagles had an available roster spot.
“We red-shirted him his first year,” Pendley said. “He could hardly break 80 in some qualifying rounds. Got down on himself at times, but he was always back the next day working hard, busting his butt to get better.
“It was gradual, day after day, you could just see it coming. He just wanted to be good and wanted to play, and took pride in his work. That’s the biggest thing from his time here — just how hard he worked.”
The SCGA’s Player of the Year award is determined by a point system earned by participating in tournaments throughout the year. This year, Sease finished with 256.67 points, which was 41.67 points ahead of second place.
“I got most of my points really in one week,” Sease said. “I tied for fifth in the U.S. Mid-Amateur — it was in Massachusetts this year — then came back and that weekend I won the South Carolina Mid-Amateur.”
Sease pointed out that Bearden, the SCGA’s 2020 Player of the Year and his teammate at Winthrop, finished in third this year, while former Winthrop golfer Walt Todd, Jr. came in fourth. 2019 Player of the Year Jordan Sease also ended the year at eighth in the standings.
“We have a ton of guys, Winthrop alum, that are playing in all these tournaments and it’s just cool to see because we’ve all been so successful in the last few years,” Sease said.
“It’s definitely something I think we kind of developed at Winthrop and we’ve just kind of taken off from there. Definitely neat for the school. It’s always good to represent Winthrop in that way.”
Sease also mentioned Winthrop alum Taylor Dickson, who plays professionally in the Korn Ferry Tour, a development tour for the PGA Tour.
Sease said he played professionally for about two and a half years after finishing school, but his career didn’t take off like he had hoped. He’s now working for an insurance company while continuing to fuel his passion for golf in the amateur ranks.
While he says he’d love to go back-to-back as the Player of the Year, he may not get to participate in quite as many events this year since he’s getting married.
“I’m going to have to play well as the ones that I do to get back-to-back, but we’ve already started joking about who’s going to be the Winthrop guy to extend the streak to four, so we’ll see how that holds up.”
