
Marta Silva Zamora, a junior at the University of Georgia, has won
the 2011 Honda Sports Award in golf, designating her as the nation’s
top collegiate female athlete in that sport. The honor was based on
the results of national balloting among 1,000 NCAA member schools
as part of The Collegiate Women Sports Awards program, now in its
35th year. Silva Zamora is the fourth University of Georgia athlete
to receive the Honda Sports Award for golf, following Terri Moody
(1981), Cindy Schreyer (1983) and Vicki Goetze (1992).
Noted Zamora, “I'm extremely proud to be named the Honda Sports Award
winner for women's golf. I had a very consistent season from start
to finish and I believe that was a big factor in winning. This award
is an honor not only for me but for many others who helped and supported
me...my coaches, my teammates, my family. It's exciting to add my
name to the other golfers from Georgia who have won this prestigious
award, and it's also neat to be included in the group of great athletes
from other sports nominated for the overall Honda-Broderick Cup."
A native of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, Silva Zamora was ranked
#1 most of the spring and shattered the University of Georgia stroke
average, finishing at 71.51 and bettering former Bulldog and current
LPGA Tour member Taylor Leon's mark of 72.63 established in 2006-07.
She recorded 22 par-or-better tallies in 33 rounds played this season,
finishing a cumulative 15-under par. She collected her third—and Georgia's
44th – All-America certificate from the National Golf Coaches Association
(NGCA). She was named the PING National Player of the Year this spring
by the NGCA, and was selected as first-team All-America by the NGCA.
She also received the Golfstat Cup as the nation's leading golfer
statistically.
Notably, Silva Zamora now holds first-, third- and 10th-best season
averages in Bulldog history. She also led her team this year in virtually
every statistical category including stroke average (71.52), counting
rounds (100 percent), par-or-better rounds (22), top-10s (9), top-20s
(10) and birdies (109). She finished her junior season in fourth-place
at the NCAA Championships, her sixth top-five finish in 10 tournaments
completed during 2010-11.
A standout student, Silva Zamora is majoring in Speech Communications
and compiled a 2.97 GPA in 2010-11. She was the recipient of the Georgia
Women's Golf Scholarship for 2009-10 and the Mary B. Dinos Scholarship
for 2010-11.