Justin Rose and Georgia Hall snubbed by #SPOTY

Not even getting to world No.1 and winning the RICOH Women’s British Open respectively were enough to earn Justin Rose and Georgia Hall a place on the BBC Sports Personality of the Year shortlist.

Neither made a six-person shortlist that comprised: F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton; the man who captained England to fourth place at the World Cup, Harry Kane; Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas; cricketer Jimmy Anderson; winter sports star Lizzy Yarnold; and double European athletics gold medallist in 2019, Dina Asher Smith.

Rose won on both the PGA Tour and European Tour in a year that also saw him win the season-long PGA Tour FedEx Cup race. He also became just the 22nd player and fourth Englishman to reach the top of the Official World Golf Rankings and played a key role in Europe’s Ryder Cup victory at Le Golf National. 

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Hall, meantime, won her first major championship in the RICOH Women’s British Open at Royal Lytham & St Annes, holding off Pornanong Phatlum to win by two shots. In doing so, she became the first Brit to win the title since Catriona Matthew in 2009 and the first English golfer since Karen Stupples in 2004. At 22, she is Britain’s youngest female major champion.

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However, despite all of this, clearly neither Rose nor Hall impressed the “selection panel” sufficiently to earn a place on the six-person shortlist.

Golfers have won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year title only twicesince its inception in 1954: Dai Rees (1957) and Sir Nick Faldo (1989).