US Masters champion Adam Scott has edged out world number one Tiger Woods as Player of the Year in voting by the Golf Writers Association of America.
The Australian beat Woods by five votes while Inbee Park of South Korea landed the female accolade and Kenny Perry took senior player honors.
“It is an honor to be recognized as the most consistent male golfer of 2013,” Scott said in a news release on Thursday ahead of his participation at this week’s Tournament of Champions in Hawaii.
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Scott, 33, became the first Australian to win the Masters in April and also claimed a FedExCup playoff victory at the Barclays in August.
His two PGA Tour wins last year lagged behind the five won by Woods, a total that earned the 14-times major champion PGA Tour Player of the Year honors with his colleagues and the PGA of America.
World No. 2 Scott also ended the season by winning the Australian PGA and the Australian Masters, teamed up with Jason Day to land the team event at the World Cup and was second in the Australian Open.
The 25-year-old Park scripted one of the most compelling golf stories in 2013 by stringing together victories in the season’s first three majors — the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the LPGA Championship and the US Women’s Open.
She notched six wins in the season and the money-list title.
“Last year was a year that I could never forget,” said Park who finished well ahead of Stacy Lewis in the voting. “I was able to put my name among the greatest players around the world.”
Perry, 53, had three wins on the Champions Tour, two of them majors, as he beat Germany’s Bernhard Langer to the player of the year award.
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