Death. Taxes.
And Kelly Mitchum winning the Carolinas PGA Player of the Year award.
OK, perhaps that’s a bit much, especially since the Pinehurst Golf Academy lead instructor earned the CPGA Bob Boyd Section Player of the Year award again for the first time since sharing it four years ago in 2016.
But in winning POY honors for an eighth time during a tumultuous 2020, it just feels like Mitchum is always in the running for one of the CPGA’s highest honors. So while winning the Bob Boyd may not necessarily be as much of an inevitability as the first two words of this story, it at least begs another storyline:
Perhaps someday it will be time to name something after Kelly Mitchum.
The list of accolades over the course of Mitchum’s golf career continues to lengthen. He starred at N.C. State, won the ACC Championship and the 1993 North & South Amateur. Mitchum represented the United States in the Walker Cup and reached the semifinals of the U.S. Amateur. He’s played numerous PGA Tour events and has qualified for and played in the PGA Championship four times.
And in winning the CPGA Player of the Year for the eighth time since 2004, he breaks the record for the most all-time. It’s a record he shared with – you guessed it – Bob Boyd.
Mitchum won twice during the 2020 CPGA season, taking titles in the 56th Mobipaid North Carolina Open and the 96th BB&T Carolinas Open. Mitchum accrued 445.20 points during the season, 90 points more than Old Town Club’s Tommy Gibson.
Mitchum, though, wasn’t the only Pinehurst Resort Golf Professional to earn high honors from the CPGA. Josh Stockwell, the lead assistant golf professional at Pinehurst No. 8, was named the Carolinas PGA Assistants’ Association Player of the Year for 2020.
Stockwell had a brilliant season, never finishing below 11th in an event this year. He won the Assistants’ Association Pro-Pro with Cedarwood Country Club’s Travis DeJohn and added a second-place and two fourth-place finishes as well.
Stockwell’s 505.50 points topped Daniel Island Club’s Ray Franz (481.25).