2026 Worldwide Golf National Player of the Year Recap

For players searching for amateur golf player of the year standings, national amateur golf rankings, or the premier season-long race in amateur golf, the 2026 Worldwide Golf National Player of the Year competition came down to the final 54 holes of the season at the North American Championship at We-Ko-Pa Golf Club in Fountain Hills, Arizona, September 18–20. Seven national titles were on the line across five gross divisions and the Mid-Am Net and Senior Net competitions, and the We-Ko-Pa weekend delivered clinched titles, flipped standings, a title won on season-long consistency, and one race decided by fewer than 20 points over a full season.

The Worldwide Golf National Player of the Year is earned on points accumulated across every event in the 2026 season, with the North American Championship serving as the final counting event. Each of the seven national champions takes home a National Player of the Year staff bag and a $500 Worldwide Golf gift card.

Division 1 was the one race already decided before the field reached the desert. Erik Benson (Atlanta) arrived at We-Ko-Pa 134 points clear of Andrew Buse (Kentucky), who was not in the field, and more than 1,100 clear of Barney Sutley(Indianapolis), the only player with a mathematical path, and that path required Sutley to win the North American Championship while Benson finished 13th or worse. Benson banked his points, Sutley finished fourth in the standings, and the Atlanta star closed the season at 8,750.00, nearly 500 ahead of Buse. The movement came behind them. Wallace Nelson (Phoenix) entered the week eighth in the country and left it third, his six-stroke North American Championship victory worth 1,475 points and enough to vault past Sutley, KG Glasgow (Kansas City), John Masotti (Carolina Triad), Gage Basiletti (Florida Southwest), and Joshua Crossen (Las Vegas). Andrew Echard (Utah), runner-up at We-Ko-Pa, climbed to ninth in just 11 counting events, and Dan Constantino (Upstate South Carolina) rounded out the national top ten.

Division 2 was a two-man race between Jeff Clifford (Utah) and John Wayne Parrish (Carolina Triad), separated by 97.20 points heading in, and Clifford settled it on the golf course. His opening 69 at Lookout Mountain set the pace for the week, and his runner-up finish at 221 was worth 789 points against Parrish’s tie for sixth, stretching the final margin to 358.83 at 5,770.34. Travis Wartluft (Charlotte), Todd Feuerhaken (St. Louis), and Mark Iriarte (Southern California) started the week 21 points apart in the fight for the national podium, and Wartluft’s eleventh-place finish at We-Ko-Pa secured third in the country at 5,100.27, with Iriarte fourth. The biggest jump in the division belonged to Mark Ballew(Myrtle Beach), who entered the North American Championship more than 1,100 points off the lead and needing a miracle for the title; his two-stroke victory did not deliver that, but it lifted him from outside the top seven to fifth in the nation at 4,867.63, just ahead of Christopher Denz (Virginia Capital) at 4,851.31. Feuerhaken slipped to seventh, with Hendrik Orlowski (Denver), Michael Lingenfelter (St. Louis), and Tanner Mattinson (Utah) completing the top ten.

Division 3 was the closest finish among the gross divisions. Pat Ryan (Myrtle Beach) led John Blackburn (Indianapolis) by 290.16 entering the week, and the scenario was simple: Blackburn needed a win with Ryan fifth or worse. Blackburn gave it everything he had, sharing the first-round lead at Aguila and finishing second at We-Ko-Pa, nine shots behind runaway champion Blake Moorman (Southern California), but Ryan’s tie for ninth was enough to hold the title by 93.96 points, 3,824.10 to 3,730.14. Moorman was the week’s mover: his nine-stroke victory paid 682.20 points and carried him from eighth in the country to third at 3,162.30, past Will Houston (Nashville), who himself climbed to fourth, and past the absent Andre Banks (Charlotte), who finished fifth. Dan Sadler (Central Pennsylvania) took sixth, Gerald Harsley (St. Louis) seventh, John Beck (Upstate South Carolina) eighth, Steven Beckstead (Utah) ninth, and Mike Paubel (St. Louis) tenth.

Division 4 was the tightest national race on the board all season, and it stayed that way to the last putt. James Plaire (Las Vegas), David Dick (Carolina Triad), and Chris Huge (Myrtle Beach) came to Arizona separated by 71.16 points, with Dick 41.88 back and Huge 71.16 back of Plaire. Huge did nearly everything asked of him, moving into contention with a Saturday 81 at Saguaro and finishing runner-up to Daniel Andrews (East Tennessee), but Plaire’s tie for fourth kept him within reach, and Plaire took the national title by 19.53 points, 1,755.42 to 1,735.89, the smallest winning margin in any of the seven races. Dick, who needed a top-three finish to flip the standings, tied for ninth and slipped from second to third at 1,666.29. Joey Fyall II (Carolina Triad) finished fourth, Brad Forsyth (Southern California) fifth, Martin Vermillion(Phoenix) sixth, Carl Elliston (Metro New York) seventh, Royce Jiang (Southern California) eighth, JD Lee (Myrtle Beach) ninth, and Darrick Kimberlin (Kansas City) tenth.

Division 5 belonged to Danny Acosta (Las Vegas), who arrived at We-Ko-Pa 70.25 points ahead of Garye LaFevers(Phoenix) and needed only a top-three finish, or a finish ahead of LaFevers, to clinch. Acosta did both in emphatic fashion, leading wire-to-wire and winning the North American Championship by six strokes for the maximum 167.75 points and a final total of 1,051.75, the only Division 5 player to clear 1,000. LaFevers held second at 837.50. The podium race behind them was a three-way scramble among Eddy Moore (Southern California), Aaron Holman (Columbus), and Michael Elder (Denver), separated by 7.12 points heading in, and Holman came out on top of that group with his sixth-place finish at We-Ko-Pa, but the absent Robert Rosenbaum (Iowa) held third in the country by 1.69 points at 715.50. Holman finished fourth at 713.81, Elder fifth, Moore sixth, Abigail Brooks (Kentucky) seventh, Billy Jones (Carolina Triad) eighth, Roger Eberlein (St. Louis) ninth, and Scott Lutton (Central Pennsylvania) tenth.

The Mid-Am Net title was stolen on the final weekend. David Dick (Carolina Triad) led the standings entering the North American Championship, but Blake Moorman (Southern California), sitting 97 points back, needed a top-four finish in the 36-hole net competition at We-Ko-Pa to take it. He won it outright by four strokes, collecting 196.25 points while Dick tied for 65th, and Moorman finished the season at 740.77 to Dick’s 690.47, pairing a Division 3 national podium with a national net championship. Denver Hubert (Augusta) held third at 624.67 without teeing it up at We-Ko-Pa, Joey Fyall II (Carolina Triad) held fourth over Jeff Clifford (Utah), and Aryanto Maramis (Southern California), Royce Jiang(Southern California), Travis Glenn (Utah), whose runner-up net finish at We-Ko-Pa lifted him into the top ten, Cody Quattlebaum (Central Georgia), and Aaron Bascomb (Utah) completed the top ten.

The Senior Net race was a testament to a full season’s work. Steve Daniels (Charlotte) built his lead over 16 events and arrived at We-Ko-Pa 12.22 points ahead of Dave Funkhouser (Myrtle Beach) and 80.82 ahead of Michael Lingenfelter(St. Louis), and that cushion proved to be exactly enough. Funkhouser needed to climb to 61st or better in the 160-player net field and finished in a 14-way tie for 60th, closing the gap to just 3.43 points. Lingenfelter, tied for 20th entering Sunday and needing a top-12 finish, closed 74-74 and settled into a tie for 15th, 6.39 points short. Daniels held on at 851.45 to Funkhouser’s 848.02 and Lingenfelter’s 837.82, the closest 1-2-3 finish in any of the seven races. Danny Acosta(Las Vegas) deserves recognition here as well: he posted the highest raw point total in the category at 869.13, capping a remarkable season across two competitions, but a player cannot win both a gross and a net national title, and as the Division 5 National Player of the Year the Senior Net crown passes to Daniels. Chris Huge (Myrtle Beach) finished fourth among eligible players, followed by Rick Johnson (St. Louis), Christopher Denz (Virginia Capital), Barney Sutley (Indianapolis), John Wayne Parrish (Carolina Triad), and Garye LaFevers (Phoenix).

Seven champions, seven National Player of the Year staff bags, and a clean slate. The 2027 APT season opens October 1, and the first major of the new year arrives October 19–20 at The Omni Homestead, where the road to the 2027 Worldwide Golf National Player of the Year begins all over again.