Northwestern University Athletics
Luke Donald Wins Jesse Owens Award
6/21/1999 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
June 23, 1999
EVANSTON, Ill. -- - Northwestern sophomore men's golfer Luke Donald (High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England) has been named the 1999 Big Ten-Jesse Owens Athlete of the Year, as voted upon by a panel of media from around the Big Ten and announced this morning by the conference office. The award was created in 1982 and is presented annually to the Big Ten's top male athlete.
Donald is the first Wildcat to win the Jesse Owens award. Former NU softball pitcher Lisa Ishikawa (1984) and field hockey/lacrosse player Jennifer Averill (1987) both previously earned the Big Ten-Suzy Favor Female Athlete of the Year award.
This is the latest in an incredible line of accolades for Donald. Earlier this month, he won the 1999 NCAA Men's Golf Championship and was named winner of the Jack Nicklaus Award as the National Player of the Year. Donald's stroke average of 70.45 earned him the Golfstat Cup, awarded to the player with the nation's lowest stroke average. That mark also broke the previous Golfstat Cup standard of 70.61, set in 1996 by Tiger Woods.
