Jackson Koivun Is Turning Pro

Jackson Koivun announced Friday that he will turn professional following the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, with his pro debut set for the John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run in early July. It was only a matter of time. The news ended months of speculation about when college golf’s most decorated player would make the jump, and it gave the PGA Tour exactly what it has been waiting for since Koivun first arrived at Auburn three years ago.

“I finally hit that mental acceptance that I’m ready to go and play on the big tour,” Koivun told Sports Illustrated. “It feels like the right time. I’m ready to get out there and compete against the big boys.”

Given what he has done over the past three years, the quote is almost understated.

Jackson Koivun at Auburn

As a freshman in 2024, Koivun won the SEC Championship by six shots, finished outside the top six just once in 13 starts, posted the lowest adjusted scoring average in the NCAA at 67.3, and led Auburn to its first national championship in program history. He became the first player in the history of college golf to sweep all four major national awards in the same season, taking home the Haskins Award, the Jack Nicklaus Award, the Ben Hogan Award, and the Phil Mickelson Award.

Koivun became only the third player in SEC history to earn SEC Freshman of the Year and SEC Player of the Year in the same season. Nobody had swept the four national awards before. Nobody has done it since.

The sophomore year brought more of the same. Koivun averaged 69.00 strokes per round over 38 rounds, a program single-season record, won the SEC Championship for the second consecutive year, and became the first player to earn back-to-back SEC medalist honors in 49 years. He also became the third player to earn a PGA Tour card through the PGA Tour University Accelerated Program.

Rather than take his Tour card, he deferred his membership and returned to Auburn for his junior year. He wanted to play in the Walker Cup at Cypress Point, compete in the U.S. Open, and bring another national title back to Auburn. He did all three. By the end of his junior season, Koivun had 11 career wins, including six in 2025-26, three straight SEC titles, two Ben Hogan Awards, two Haskins Awards, a Walker Cup win at Cypress Point, and back-to-back national championships.

In winning the 2026 Ben Hogan Award, he joined Jon Rahm and Ludvig Aberg as the only multi-time winners in the award’s history.

When Auburn head coach Nick Clinard started a “one more year” chant on the Golf Channel broadcast after the Tigers won the national title last week, it got a laugh. There was nothing left for Koivun to prove in college. There really had not been for a while.

Jackson Koivun On Tour

The college accolades tend to overshadow something worth paying closer attention to: Koivun has been playing PGA Tour events as an amateur for two years, and the results tell a clear story.

His debut came at the 2024 Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village, where he made the cut in his first professional-field start. Making the cut at Muirfield is not a gimme under any circumstances. The course is demanding, the field is deep, and it offers no soft landing for anyone who shows up underprepared.

The 2025 season brought a fuller schedule and results that climbed as the year went on. Early cuts made at the Farmers Insurance Open and the Arnold Palmer Invitational, a missed cut at the U.S. Open at Oakmont, and then a gear change over the summer. Four consecutive rounds below par at the John Deere Classic and a T11 at 15 under. “This week was good. Shows me I can come out here and do it,” Koivun said after his final round.

A T6 at the ISCO Championship followed, then a T5 at the Wyndham, and a T4 at the Procore Championship in September, where he finished three strokes behind Scottie Scheffler. Four straight top-11 finishes, each one better than the last, all while technically still a college student carrying a full Auburn schedule in the fall.

The John Deere as a pro debut makes sense beyond just sentiment. Koivun has family connections in the Silvis area, knows the course already, and posted that T11 there as an amateur last summer. Jordan Spieth won there as a teenager. Nick Dunlap, a close friend of Koivun’s, made his own jump to professional golf recently and gives him a nearby example of how that transition can go.

What Comes Next for Jackson Koivun

The PGA Tour has been waiting on a homegrown American star in the making for a while now. Scheffler is the best player in the world and has been for two years, but the tier below him has been thin on young American names ready to push. Koivun is 21, already has a tour card, and carries a college résumé that lines up almost directly with two players who figured out the pro game quickly. Aberg went from Texas Tech to a top-10 world ranking within a year of turning pro. Rahm became world number one within three years of leaving Arizona State. Both won multiple Ben Hogan Awards.

Koivun won his second one three weeks ago.

“I try my best to think it’s just golf,” he said before the Wyndham last summer. “I like to think that a 7-iron is a 7-iron no matter where you’re at.”

The results back it up.