Trio of Tide Golfers Named Cleveland Golf All-America Scholars
7/16/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
July 16, 2008
TUSCALOOSA - A trio of University of Alabama golfers were named Cleveland Golf All-America Scholars, announced by the Golf Coaches Association of America. That academic honor list requires the golfers to be a junior or senior academically and compete in at least two full years at the collegiate level, participate in 70 percent of his teams' competitive round or compete in the NCAA Championships, have a stroke average under 76.0 and maintain a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.2.
Three Crimson Tide golfers were named Cleveland Golf All-America Scholars, including Daphne's Joseph Sykora, Montgomery's Matthew Swan, and Dalton, Ga., native Matt Hughes. Hughes and Swan were juniors this past season on the Tide team. Sykora was a senior. On the golf course this past season, Sykora participated in 10 tournaments, winning the Topy Cup/U.S. vs. Japan tournament and had a 73.94 stroke average. Swan won the Puerto Rico Classic, one of 10 tournaments he played in, and he had a 73.52 stroke average in 2007-08. Hughes played in nine tournaments this past season and produced a 74.32 stroke average with two top 10 individual finishes. All three golfers were All-District on the course and helped Alabama win the 2008 Southeastern Conference Championship. Swan was All-SEC. All three were named Academic All-Southeastern Conference with Sykora winning, for the third straight year, the SEC Scholar Athlete of the Year Award. He is also an ESPN the Magazine three-time Academic All-American. He was the SEC's Boyd McWhorter Award winner as the top male student-athlete in any sport in the SEC.
Sykora, an accounting major with two degrees from the University of Alabama, is pursuing a professional golf career. Swan and Hughes will return to the Tide golf team for their senior seasons this fall.
