Jackson Koivun is Here
Every year, across most major sports, everyone gives their opinion on the first overall pick, and the takes tend to be this guy is the next [insert star player comparison]. In golf, it is quite different: some players bypass college altogether because there are so few spots on the PGA TOUR, but for those who go to school and ascend to the top of college golf, the expectations grow. The latest player to be handed that torch is Jackson Koivun.
While at Auburn, two of the greatest seasons college golf has ever seen. In 2024, as a freshman, he became the first player to sweep all four of college golf’s major awards: the Haskins Award, Jack Nicklaus Award, and Ben Hogan Award, as college golf’s best player, as well as the Phil Mickelson Award as college’s best freshman – we can debate whether this award should be renamed later. Koivun did all this while leading the Auburn Tigers to a national championship. By the way, he also won SEC Freshman and Player of the Year in 2024.
A year later, he won SEC Player of the Year again, as well as the Mark H. McCormack Medal for finishing the year as the world’s top-ranked amateur. In 2026, he won the three major awards he was eligible for from his freshman year again, in addition to another SEC Player of the Year nod. Oh, and he led Auburn to another national title.
However, being an elite college golfer does not mean you will be an elite player on TOUR. In the last 10 years, eight others have won the Haskins Award (Koivun won it twice). Of those eight, two are elite players: Chris Gotterup (2022 winner) and Ludvig Aberg (2023); one is a pretty good player on TOUR, 2020 winner Sahith Theegala; and the other five are now nonfactors in golf. But Koivun seems to be falling in the minority – in this case, a good thing.
Today, he held off the world’s best golfer, Scottie Scheffler, who shot eight-under par, to win for the first time at the 3M Open in Minnesota, in just his third start on TOUR as a professional.
Jackson Koivun is the real deal, and he is here to stay.