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Men’s Player of the Year – Zac Jones

 

Jones started piling up PPR points with a win in the Coral Canyon Amateur in early January.

Trying to win the tournament is the best strategy for becoming the low amateur in the Siegfried & Jensen Utah Open.

A snapshot of the high standards that make Zac Jones a great golfer came alongside the 18th green at Riverside Country Club in August, when he somewhat reluctantly accepted congratulations after finishing first among the amateur contestants. The BYU golfer from Lone Peak High School was disappointed with a closing 71 that dropped him to a tie for eighth place overall.

As he explained later, “You’re trying to beat everybody there, and being low amateur is just one of those things that comes when you play well.”

Same story with his 2022 Men’s Player of the Year award in the Utah Golf Association, which he describes as “one of those goals that you accomplish without necessarily trying to accomplish.”

In other words, Jones just played golf, and added them up in the end. With four victories and four runner-up finishes, he posted 508.5 points to 354.5 for his younger brother Cooper, the 2021 Player of the Year.

Zac Jones won the 2022 Utah State Amateur defeating Simon Kwon 4 and 3 in July at Wasatch Mountain State Park’s Soldier Hollow Golf Course.

Jones started piling up points with a win in the Coral Canyon Amateur over BYU teammate Carson Lundell in early January and added a victory in The Oaks Open in Spanish Fork with a 64-63 showing in April. Jones jumped ahead of his brother by winning the State Amateur at Soldier Hollow Golf Course in July (Cooper was upset in the first round of match play), beating Simon Kwon 4 and 3 in the final match, and added the low-amateur title in the Utah Open with a 66-68-71 performance in Provo.

The result was a satisfying UGA season.

Read more from Fairways Media senior writer Kurt Kragthorpe in the upcoming November issue of Fairways magazine.