Wake Forest Athletics
Brendan Gielow Wins The 2010 Byron Nelson Award
5/28/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
May 28, 2010
NORMAN, Okla. - Wake Forest's Brendan Gielow had a tremendous senior season and it was capped-off Friday as he was named the 2010 Byron Nelson Award winner by the Golf Coaches Association of America.
Candidates for the Nelson Award must have been a graduating senior and the selection committee considered equally a nominee's entire collegiate academic and golf career as well as his character and integrity while in college. Particular consideration was also given to a nominee's good citizenship, as portrayed by Mr. Byron Nelson over the course of his life and golf career.
"I couldn¹t be more thrilled," said Gielow. "Winning the Nelson Award was my No. 1 goal all year. At the beginning of the spring we all met at Coach Haas' house and had to name our top three goals and this was what I put at the top of the board. I can't think of a better way to end my senior year."
Coming off a tremendous summer that saw him post a number of top-10s and a win at the Porter Cup, Gielow started his season senior as a member of the US Walker Cup team. He won his Sunday singles match and helped the Americans to their third-straight victory.
The Muskegon, Mich., native then joined the Deacons at the Olympia Fields/Illini Invitational at the famed Olympia Fields Country Club outside of Chicago, Ill. He carded rounds of 72-74-72 to finish tied for 14th. That was the lowest Gielow finished in any of his next seven events as he notched a total five top-5s including a clutch victory at the JU Invitational in February. During that stretch, 12 of his 19 rounds were played at par of better and he ascended to the No. 1 individual ranking by Golfstat at the end of March.
After earning ACC Player of the Month honors in February and finishing tied for sixth at the ACC Championship in April, Gielow capped his ACC career by earning his All-ACC honors.
For the year, Gielow averaged 71.87 strokes per round which was second-best in the ACC. Fifteen of his 31 rounds were played at par or better and he was the only player on the team to have all of his rounds count towards the team score.
Over his career, Gielow played in 47 tournaments for the Demon Deacons with a stroke average of 72.74. He claimed a pair of victories (2008 VCU Invitational and 2010 JU Invitational), had 18 top-10s and nearly 91 percent of his 137 total rounds counted towards the team score. Since 1981, his 72.74 career scoring averaging is fifth-best in school history behind the likes of Bill Haas, Webb Simpson and Kyle Reifers.
On May 17, Gielow completed a very successful academic career at Wake Forest as well, receiving his bachelor's degree in religion. He was an active member of the Reformed University Fellowship, an outreach ministry at Wake Forest and led team weekly gatherings to discuss how to become better people and teammates.
Gielow also earned Academic All-ACC honors each of the last three seasons and was named a Cleveland Golf/Srixon All-America Scholar last year. As a sophomore he also garnered ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District honors.
This spring, the ACC honored Gielow with the Weaver-James-Corrigan Honorary Award, which recognizes student-athletes for their outstanding academic and athletic performance who intend to compete at the professional level.
"In my opinion, the Byron Nelson Award is the most prestigious award because it typifies what a student-athlete truly is," said Wake Forest head coach Jerry Haas. "There are guys that are great players and there are guys that are great students but to have the combination of both a great student and a great athlete is something that is outstanding. Being a coach, it makes you sleep better at night and it makes you realize you have a good leader. Brendan is very deserving of the award. He's obviously a wonderful kid. He's done a lot for this program and I look forward to watching him play professional golf. I want to thank committee for realizing what a great kid he is how deserving he was of the award."
The other finalists for this year's Nelson Award were Seth Fair of Indianapolis, Adam Long of Duke, Charlotte's Corey Nagy, Jack Newman of Michigan State and Air Force's Tom Whitney. Gielow was also a semifinalist this year for the Ben Hogan Award, which is given annually to the nation's top male collegiate golfer.
Previous Byron Nelson Award Winners
2003 Troy Matteson (Georgia Tech)
2004 Billy Hurley (Navy)
2005 Michael Putnam (Pepperdine)
2006 Zack Robinson (Oklahoma State)
2007 Sam Korbe (Tulsa) and Roberto Castro (Georgia Tech)
2008 Nathaniel James (Washington & Lee)
2009 Mike Van Sickle (Marquette)
