Paul Casey

He ended that season 22nd on the order of merit and won the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year award.

Paul Alexander Casey (born 21 July 1977) is an English golfer who is a member of LIV Golf.

He has also played on the US-based PGA Tour and the European Tour.

In the US he won three consecutive Pac-12 Championships (1998, 1999 and 2000).

Back on the other side of the Atlantic he won the English Amateur in 1999 and 2000.

He was also a member of Great Britain and Ireland's winning 1999 Walker Cup team, where he was only the third player in 77 years to record four victories without a single defeat.

In 2000 he broke the championship scoring record held by Tiger Woods (18 under par) with a 23 under par 265.

Casey joined the European Tour in May 2001, and recorded a second in his fifth event and a win in his eleventh, the Gleneagles Scottish PGA Championship.

After a disappointing second season he won the ANZ Championship and the Benson and Hedges International Open in 2003, and came sixth on the Order of Merit.

Casey did not win any individual titles in 2004, but he was a member of the victorious European Ryder Cup team and also won the WGC-World Cup for England in partnership with Luke Donald.

Another highlight of his year was a sixth-place finish in his first Masters.

He joined the PGA Tour shortly afterwards as a Special Temporary Member and his membership of the 2004 European Ryder Cup Team qualified him for membership of the US based tour for the 2005 season.

Casey sparked controversy in November 2004, when in an interview for the Sunday Times newspaper he reportedly said, of the US Ryder Cup team, "Oh, we properly hate them. We wanted to beat them as badly as possible".

Several leading American golfers, including Fred Funk and Davis Love III, publicly dismissed the controversy surrounding Casey as tabloid mischief.

Casey later apologised, saying the remarks were taken out of context and using the word "hate" was an error.

Casey said he has an American coach (Peter Kostis) and an American girlfriend, and says he "has nothing against America".

However he continues to play mainly in Europe, and was the leader of the European Tour Order of Merit in 2006, until Pádraig Harrington overtook him in the final event.

In 2006, Casey won the HSBC World Match Play Championship at Wentworth, beating Shaun Micheel 10 and 8 in a record victory for the final.

Casey became the only player in Ryder Cup history to win a foursome match with a hole-in-one on Saturday, 23 September 2006, in Ireland.

In January 2007 he reached a career high of No. 13 in the rankings.

In 2008, he married Jocelyn Hefner, a distant cousin of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.

The couple lived a quiet life on a remote ranch in rural Arizona, where keen amateur horse woman Jocelyn competed in local equestrian events.

In 2009, he achieved his highest position, third, in the Official World Golf Ranking.

Casey was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, but moved with his family to Weybridge, Surrey at the age of six.

After attending Cleves School, Weybridge and then Hampton School, west London, he studied A levels at Strode's College, Egham, Surrey.

He then took a golf scholarship at Arizona State University.

He re-joined the PGA Tour in 2009.

Casey has featured in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking and was the highest ranked Englishman for a time.

Casey earned his first PGA Tour win on 5 April 2009 by defeating J. B. Holmes in a one-hole playoff at the Shell Houston Open.

This win took him to No. 6 in the Official World Golf Ranking.

Casey won his milestone 10th event on the European Tour at the 2009 BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth Golf Club in Surrey, where he won by one stroke over Wentworth resident and fellow Englishman Ross Fisher.

This win vaulted Casey to a career high of 3rd in the Official World Golf Ranking.

He had been ranked at No. 41 at the beginning of 2009.

Casey suffered a rib injury at the 2009 Open Championship, limiting the amount of golf he could play in the second half of 2009.

The couple divorced in 2011, citing the impact of the demands of Casey's career on their marriage.

After they met at the Formula 1 Chequered Flag Ball at the 2011 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Casey started dating television presenter Pollyanna Woodward.

The couple got engaged during the Christmas period in 2013.

Soon after, they welcomed their first son, Lex, on 1 September 2014.

They married January 2015.

His amateur career was distinguished.