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UGA Men’s Player of the Year: Noah Schone
In the UGA Men’s Player of the Year (presented by Primo) race, the math only partially altered a great story.
Noah Schone finished more than 20 points ahead of runner-up Austin Shelley. So it cannot be said that Schone’s chip-in eagle on No. 18 in a State Amateur quarterfinal match vs. Shelley’s brother Jackson made all the difference.
Among multiple runner-up finishes in 2025, Noah Schone was the medalist in the 36-hole stroke play qualifying at the Utah State Amateur in Logan.
Schone’s 2025 performance, amid the growth of his golf-related business, is still compelling material. And there’s no diminishing how Schone delivered the shot of the year in Utah golf and shared it with the world.
His social media following also made the Player Performance Rankings more closely tracked than any time in the six seasons that the UGA has used the PPR as the Player of the Year gauge. Schone made it fun, and the Utah golf community got a lot of attention.
In a competition that came down to the last event of the UGA calendar, the 26-year-old Schone posted 361.25 points to 338.0 for Shelley, a Skyline High School senior, and 335.25 for Utah Tech’s David Liechty. The Pine View alumnus became the third straight St. George-area high school graduate to win the Men’s Player of the Year award (following Boston Bracken and Zach Felts), counting each player’s top 10 tournaments.
“I’m a big believer in confidence,” Schone said. “I’ve got more confidence than probably anybody in the state right now. And I’m thinking my way around the golf course, rather than going out and swinging.”
Schone labeled the 2025 Utah State Amateur as “an epic experience.”
Consistency has always been Schone’s hallmark, from Pine View to his one year of Utah Tech golf to his 2025 amateur season. Sustained excellence is a better description for how he played this year.
While the PPR credited him with a tie for low amateur in the Valley View Open, Schone views it as a playoff defeat (Liechty won in five holes). He also was disappointed to miss a short putt on the last hole to lose the UGA Winterchamps title to Drake Harvey on a hometown course, Green Spring GC. Even so, Schone’s repeatedly coming close to winning fueled him all season, and he’s justifiably proud of having contended so frequently.
The State Am was the highlight. Schone was the stroke-play medalist and won four matches, including the 1-up defeat of Shelley. With his brother, Lucas, caddying for him and other family members and friends watching at Logan Country Club, he labeled that ending “an epic experience.”
Schone’s social media popularity made this season’s Player Performance Rankings the most closely followed yet, bringing fun and added attention to Utah amateur golf.
If his life is not interesting enough already, there’s likely more to come in this decade. Eco Battery, the company he co-founded while sacrificing his college golf career, is a remarkable story. The business of designing, building and distributing lithium batteries for golf carts and other recreational vehicles is so marketable that Schone can foresee selling it and making golf his profession at some point.
For now, being 26, single and professionally successful, he said, has “allowed me to travel and do a lot of really cool things.”
And get really good at golf.
2025 UGA Player of the Year presented by Primo features are written by Fairways Media senior writer Kurt Kragthorpe. Photography by Fairways Media/Garrit Johnson.