For the second time in three years, Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ontario has won the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award, which is presented to the Canadian Press Female Athlete of the Year. Henderson won the award on Wednesday.
Henderson won twice on the LPGA Tour in 2017. Her first victory came at the Meijer LPGA Classic in Grand Rapids, Michigan on June 18. Henderson shot a four round score of -21 to beat American superstars Michelle Wie and Lexi Thompson by two strokes. Henderson’s second win came at the McKayson New Zealand Women’s Open in Auckland, New Zealand on October 1. Henderson shot a four round score of -17 and beat Jing Yan of China by five strokes.
Henderson finished sixth on the LPGA Money List with $1,504,869. She was behind South Korea’s Sung Hyun Park and So Yeon Ryu, Thompson, China’s Shanshan Feng and Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn. Henderson is also 14th in the LPGA World Rankings.
Even though Henderson has now won the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award twice in three years, one could argue her best of the three seasons was 2016. Last year, she became the second Canadian women’s golfer ever to win a major when she won the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in Seattle. However, she was up against a dynamic swimmer in Penny Oleksiak of Toronto, Ontario, who won four medals in swimming for Canada at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
I believe a swimmer should have won the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award two years in a row. If I had a vote, I would have gone with Kylie Masse of LaSalle, Ontario, who set a world record in the women’s 100m backstroke at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest.
