TUSCALOOSA | Joseph Sykora, a senior on the University of Alabama golf team, has been named one of five finalists for the Byron Nelson Award presented by Cleveland Golf.

The finalists were announced Monday afternoon by the Golf Coaches Association of America. Candidates for the Nelson must be a graduating senior and the selection committee considers equally a nominee’s entire collegiate academic and golf career as well as his character and integrity while in college, according to the release sent out by the GCAA.

The winner will be announced prior to the NCAA Championships, May 28-31, in West Lafayette, Ind.

Sykora has won two collegiate championships, opening the fall by winning the Topy Cup, a USA colleges vs. Japan competition. He won the Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate in October 2006, setting what was then a school record 54-hole score of 199. He finished second at the 2008 SEC Championships.

In the last few weeks Sykora has won two major awards, the H. Boyd McWhorter Award from the SEC as its top male student-athlete in all sports and the Bryant Award, given to the top male student-athlete at the University of Alabama.

Sykora made SEC history in April, becoming the first three-time winner of the league’s Scholar Athlete of the Year for men’s golf. The 4.0 student won it in 2006, 2007 and 2008. He graduated from Alabama with a degree in accounting in May 2007 and will get his masters degree in accounting from Alabama this Saturday, again with a 4.0 GPA in graduate school.

Sykora is a native of Daphne and a graduate of UMS-Wright.