Clemson junior Corbin Mills, who burst onto the national scene last summer by winning the United States Public Links Championship, has been named to the 2012 Ben Hogan Award Watch List.

Mills is one of 28 golfers named as candidates for the award, which takes into account both collegiate and amateur results over the course of a year, from May 2011 to May 2012. He is joined on the list by fellow ACC golfers Books Koepka, a senior at Florida State, and James White, a senior at Georgia Tech.

Mills, who followed up his U.S. Public Links title by winning the Players Amateur the following week, kicked off his junior collegiate season by winning the Jerry Pate Intercollegiate at Birmingham, AL in October.

Mills – an Anderson County native who played his high school golf at Wren High - is ranked 12th in the latest Golfweek/Sagarin college rankings and is fifth in the United States Amateur rankings by Golfweek. He has been ranked as high as No. 8 in the world among amateurs.

Mills is attempting to become the third Clemson golfer to win the Ben Hogan Award. D.J. Trahan won it in 2002 and Kyle Stanley was the winner in 2009. Both are currently on the PGA Tour.

A list of 10 semifinalists for the award will be released on April 11, and then three finalists will be announced on May 10.

The three finalists will travel to Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, TX for the Ben Hogan Award presentation on May 21.

By winning the Public Links title last summer, Mills claimed a spot in the 2012 Masters, where he’ll join former Tigers Stanley, Jonathan Byrd and Lucas Glover. His victory in the Players Amateur earned him a spot in the PGA Tour’s Heritage at Hilton Head Island.

Mills won the prestigious Public Links amateur championship at Bandon Dunes Country Club in Oregon last July. In winning both the stroke-play qualifier and the match-play championship portion of the tournament, he became the first player to sweep since Trahan. It was the first match-play tournament of Mills’ career, and as well as his first experience on a links-style course.

As a sophomore, he was Clemson’s top player in terms of stroke average with 73.00, rounds at 75 or better (25), rounds under par (10), top 10 finishes (4), and low rounds of the day (13). His score counted in 26 of 30 rounds over the course of the season.

Mills finished his sophomore season with three straight top 15 finishes, as he was 10th at Augusta State, sixth at the ACC tournament and 14th at the NCAA Colorado Regional.