Jackson Koivun always has been precocious.
In second grade, Koivun already had mastered addition and subtraction, so his teacher jumped ahead to teaching him division and multiplication, his mother, Meghan, recalled. “Because she didn’t know what else to do,” she said. “It was the same with spelling and everything else.”
Fred Garcia, his golf coach, remembers their first golf lesson when Koivun was 12.
“He hit a medium bucket of balls in about five minutes, just rifling through them,” Garcia said. “When he got done, I said ‘You’ve got to learn how to practice. You’ve got to have a routine.’”
Koivun's routine became winning. Champ is the nickname that Garcia, teaching pro at Cinnabar Hills in San Jose, bestowed on his prized pupil, and on Sunday,
the 21-year-old prodigy became a champion for the first time on the PGA Tour, winning the 3M Open in Blaine, Minnesota, in just his third PGA Tour start as a professional and 13th career start overall.
Koivun closed in 5-under 66 at TPC Twin Cities to set a 72-hole tournament scoring record of 25-under 259 and three strokes better than world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler.
How good is this?!
— Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) July 26, 2026
Jackson Koivun with a clutch two-putt birdie on No. 16 to extend his lead to three pic.twitter.com/VQIzUMDzHO
Koivun made his move on Saturday, playing the final 10 holes in 9 under to shoot a tournament-record back-nine score of 28, card 61 and tie the 3M Open 54-hole scoring record. He built a three-stroke lead and six ahead of Scheffler, but he knew there were birdies to be had and that someone likely would go low in the final round – Michael Kim shot 59 on Friday but ran out of gas on the weekend.
In the final round, Koivun birdied the first hole and three of the first six to stretch his lead to as many as six. But Scheffler refused to make it a cake walk, throwing a final-round 63 to finish 22 under and record his fifth runner-up of the season. The world No. 1 has gone 182 days since his last win. Past major champions Hideki Matsuyama (64) and Brian Harman (65) tied for third at 20 under along with Chandler Phillips and Denny McCarthy. "I did what I could today," Scheffler said. "My back nine Friday and front nine Saturday cost me. But I put up a good fight."
Koivun, kept hearing the crowd chanting, "Scottie's coming! Scottie's coming!" He tried to drown that out and holed a critical 15-foot par putt at the ninth, playing the final 42 holes of the tournament bogey-free. He tacked on a birdie at the par-5 12th, and drove the short, par-4 16th, to set up a 6-foot birdie. He pumped his right fist when he holed a 14-foot par putt at the last and then hugged his dad.
Koivun is proving to live up to the hype. Last month, Koivun led Auburn to its second national championship title in three years. He won six times in 13 collegiate starts in his final season, becoming the first player in collegiate golf history to win all three Player of the Year awards (Haskins, Hogan, Nicklaus) twice – first as a freshman in 2024 and again as a junior in 2026. Veteran pro Russell Henley, who won the Charles Schwab Challenge in May, has become good friends with Koivun and played with him a bunch during his college days. “I don’t think he has a lot to learn. That kid’s good,” Henley told PGA Tour.com in a video titled "The Acceleration of Jackson Koivun." "I always tell him just let me know when you’re going to turn pro so I can retire.”
Koivun was the No. 1 ranked player in the World Amateur Golf Rankings when he accepted PGA Tour membership via PGA Tour University Accelerated. He missed the cut at the John Deere Classic last month in his professional debut, but finished T-10 at the ISCO Championship in his most recent start. Scheffler, for one, was impressed with how he handled himself sleeping on a lead and never let anyone cut into it. "I think that shows not only how talented of a player he is, but I think the mental strength he has as well," he said.
As a measure of his mental fortitude, CBS Sports's Amanda Balionis asked Koivun to show the TV audience his glove, where he's written confidence, trust and dominate.
"Dominate's a word I came up with in college because I just want to go see how good I can play," he said.
And now Koivun's dream of winning on the PGA Tour is complete in a flash. That's always been his M.O. Champ is officially a champ.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Jackson Koivun wins 3M Open in his third start as PGA Tour pro
