European Tour Press Release

MARTIN KAYMER NAMED SIR HENRY COTTON
ROOKIE OF YEAR ON EUROPEAN TOUR

Martin Kaymer has been named Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year for 2007 after a superb debut season on The European Tour International Schedule which saw the 22 year old from Dusseldorf become the first German to win the Award.
He succeeds Scotland’s Marc Warren as the winner of the Award which is presented to the European golfer judged to have produced the most outstanding first year as a Member of The European Tour.
Kaymer was the choice of the selection panel comprising The European Tour, The R&A and the Association of Golf Writers following a superb debut season in which he recorded four top ten finishes on his way to qualifying for the Volvo Masters.
At Valderrama last week, Kaymer added another top ten to his CV, shooting the lowest round of the week – a five under par 66 in the third round – to take sixth place and bring down the curtain on his rookie season with earnings of €754,691 and 41st place on The European Tour Order of Merit.
Kaymer graduated to The European Tour by finishing fourth in the Challenge Tour Rankings in 2006, having won on his Challenge Tour debut as a professional at the Vodafone Challenge in his native Germany.
Kaymer’s main rivals for the Award were Spain’s Alvaro Quiros, who won the Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa before missing a substantial part of the 2007 season due to injury, and Sweden’s Alexander Noren.
No German has won the Award since its inception in 1960 and Kaymer said: “To be the first winner from my country is a very special honour. When I look at the list of previous winners -people like Nick Faldo, Sandy Lyle and Colin Montgomerie - that makes it even more spectacular.
“There were a lot of good players on Tour who could have won – Alvaro Quiros and Alexander Noren for example – and I think it was a battle between us all through the year. At the beginning of the season I didn’t really feel comfortable on The European Tour because I didn’t know anyone and there were just a few Germans who I played with in practice.
“But now I know a lot of people. I’ve played with different players every week and it is a lot of fun. Growing up I admired Bernhard Langer and Ernie Els. They were my role models and it was a special honour for me to play with Ernie in Munich recently. That was really cool.”