UCLA freshman and 2013 Rolex Junior Player of the Year Alison Lee won the inaugural ANNIKA Award presented by 3M as the country’s most outstanding female collegiate golfer.
The winner was decided by a vote of Division I golfers, college coaches and members of the golf media. Lee will receive the ANNIKA Award in September at the first-annual ANNIKA Intercollegiate Presented by 3M tournament at Reunion Resort in Orlando, Florida.
The award is an ANNIKA Foundation initiative managed with the help of Golfweek. Oversight is provided by the Fred Haskins Commission, a 501(c)(3) organization in Columbus, Georgia, which for 44 years has given out the Haskins Award to the outstanding male collegiate golfer.
In her final junior golf season, Lee, won all three starts of 2013, competed for the victorious squads at the Wyndham Cup (West Team) and PING Junior Solheim Cup (United States), and earned the No. 1 spot in the Polo Golf Rankings. The six-time, first-team Rolex Junior All-American totaled nine career AJGA victories, four coming at Invitationals: 2013 Rolex Tournament of Champions, 2013 Rolex Girls Junior Championship, 2012 The PING Invitational and 2012 ANNIKA Invitational.
At UCLA, Lee set a single-season scoring record with a 71.0 stroke average and was a cumulative 22-under-par. She won three times (Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational, Stanford Intercollegiate and Pac-12 Championship), had nine top 10s, was a first-team All-American, Pac-12 Women’s Golfer of the Year and Freshman of the Year. She was also a member of the victorious 2014 United States Curtis Cup team.
Since 2009, the ANNIKA Foundation has been the title sponsor of the ANNIKA Invitational, a 54-hole stroke play, all-girls Invitational held annually in January at Reunion Resort in Reunion, Florida. The tournament has received several accolades including the Newcomer of the Year in 2009, the Invitational of the Year in 2010, and the Media Award in 2011 and 2013.
The ANNIKA Foundation has also supported the AJGA by endowing an Achieving Competitive Excellence (ACE) Grant which provides opportunities to talented junior golfers who lack the financial resources to play a national junior golf schedule.