The Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year award is named after the English three-time Open Champion. A flamboyant character, he won The Open in 1934, 1937, and 1948. Between 1930 and 1952 he played in 13 Open Championships and only once finished outside the top 10, and that was when he came tied 13th.
In the first of his Open wins, at Royal St George’s, he went round in a then-record 65 in the second round, which brought about the Dunlop 65 ball. Aged 80, in 1987, he accepted a knighthood, but he died on December 22 before the award was officially announced in the 1980 New Year's Day Honours list.
Sir Henry had originally determined the winner of the Rookie of the Year. But now it is adjudicated by a panel comprising DP World Tour Executives and members of the DP World Tour’s Tournament Committee.
The award was first presented in 1960, and so predates the start of the tour in 1972, but the tour nevertheless counts the awards before 1972 as being Tour awards. Before the European Tour existed, the award was for the best rookie on the British PGA circuit. The first winner received £100, the equivalent of £3,040 in modern-day prices.
It was not until 1986 that someone other than an Englishman, Scot or Welshman won. That year a Spaniard won. The next time a non-Brit won was in 1991, when the winner came from Sweden, as did the next non-British winner, in 1996. This century has seen 13 different nationalities win the award.
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