Jackson Koivun: Everything to Know About the 21-Year-Old Who Just Took Down Scottie Scheffler

I play off a 9 handicap, and I still can’t hit a 620 MB blade the way Jackson Koivun does. I found that out the hard way at a demo day last month, spraying a rented 4-iron across two fairways while the shop’s teaching pro just shook his head. That’s the exact club Koivun carries into PGA Tour events at 21 years old, an age when most golfers are still figuring out how to two-putt from 40 feet. This piece covers every real number attached to his name: his age, his height, his net worth, what’s actually in his bag, and what changed the week he beat the best player in the world by three shots.

Quick Answer: Jackson Koivun is a 21-year-old pro golfer from San Jose, California, who turned pro in June 2026 and won his first PGA Tour title 24 days later at the 3M Open, beating Scottie Scheffler by three shots. He stands 5-foot-10, plays a full Titleist bag, and the win locks him into the 2027 Masters.

Who Is Jackson Koivun?

Jackson Koivun turned pro on June 12, 2026, and by July 26 he’d already won a PGA Tour event that included Scottie Scheffler, Hideki Matsuyama and Brian Harman in the field. Twenty-four days. That’s the entire gap between his rookie PGA Tour card arriving and his first winner’s check.

Before any of that, Koivun spent parts of four years as the best amateur golfer alive. He held the World Amateur Golf Ranking’s No. 1 spot for 56 weeks, the third-longest run in the ranking’s history, and he led Auburn to two national championships while becoming the only golfer ever to win all three major college player of the year awards twice. Tiger Woods never managed that.

San Jose, California, is where the story starts. Koivun’s family moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, before his senior year of high school, and his dad, George, put a golf club in his hands as a toddler.

His longtime coach, Fred Garcia, still runs the pro shop at Cinnabar Hills Golf Course south of San Jose and now coaches Koivun over FaceTime from 2,500 miles away. Nobody outside golf media circles knew Garcia’s name a year ago. Plenty of people do now.

Koivun’s Age, Height and Quick Facts

Koivun’s birthday lands on May 23, 2005, which makes him 21 years old as of this writing in July 2026. He turns 22 next May. That’s four years younger than Scheffler, the guy he just beat by three shots at the 3M Open, and more than a decade younger than Adam Scott, who teed it up that same week working toward his 100th career major start.

At 5-foot-10, Koivun isn’t chasing distance the way 6-foot-4 bombers like Cameron Champ do. Auburn’s own roster lists him at 5-10, and so does Wikipedia. Height doesn’t win golf tournaments. Strokes gained does, and Koivun led the entire 3M Open field in approach play.

Koivun’s Auburn Career: Records That May Never Get Broken

A 68.89 career scoring average isn’t just good. It’s the best mark in NCAA history, and it isn’t particularly close. Koivun built that number across three seasons, 39 tournaments and 118 rounds wearing an Auburn jersey, and he broke Colin Morikawa’s single-season NCAA scoring record along the way.

Eleven career wins put him first in Auburn history and tied for seventh all-time in the NCAA. He three-peated as SEC individual champion, something only one other golfer had pulled off since 1967, and he won the Ben Hogan and Haskins awards twice each, joining Jon Rahm and Ludvig Aberg as the only multi-time Hogan winners. If you want to see how a 68.89 scoring average stacks up against your own handicap index, we broke down what every number in the World Handicap System actually means here.

Koivun Wins the 3M Open: Inside His First PGA Tour Title

Twenty-five under par over four rounds at a PGA Tour venue isn’t a hot week. It’s the kind of number that used to only show up as a props bet nobody expected to cash. Koivun shot 64-68-61-66 at TPC Twin Cities to finish at 25-under 259, a new 72-hole tournament scoring record, and he beat the reigning world No. 1 by three full shots.

Saturday’s third round is the one people will remember. Koivun carded a 10-under 61 that included a tournament-record, 8-under 28 on the back nine, with two eagles mixed in.

He closed the week bogey-free from his 12th hole on Friday through the final putt on Sunday, gaining 17.349 strokes on the field, leading everyone in Strokes Gained: Approach, hitting 61 of 72 greens, and picking up another 5.649 strokes with the putter. Written on his glove that week: three words.

Confidence. Trust. Dominate.

The win paid $1.584 million out of an $8.8 million purse, moved him to No. 70 in the FedExCup standings and locked in a two-year PGA Tour exemption through 2028.

Is Jackson Koivun Playing in the US Open? And What About the Masters?

Koivun already played the 2026 US Open. It was his final event as an amateur, he earned the spot as the world’s top-ranked amateur, and he finished tied for 23rd at Shinnecock Hills. If you’re curious about that golf course itself, we put together a full history of Shinnecock Hills and its six US Opens here, including the John Shippen story that most golf fans have never heard.

Turning pro cost him something, though. His amateur world ranking had already earned him a spot in that summer’s Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, and he gave it up on purpose rather than wait another year to turn pro.

He didn’t play the 2026 Masters. No amateur exemption category fit his situation at the time, and Golf Monthly ran an entire piece questioning whether Augusta National needs a new amateur pathway because of exactly that gap. But the 3M Open win fixed his major championship problem in one Sunday. Here’s where he actually stands right now:

Jackson Koivun Net Worth: What’s Confirmed vs. What’s a Guess

Anyone who quotes you an exact net worth figure for Koivun is making it up. There’s no public filing for a 21-year-old’s bank account, and NIL deals never come with a disclosed dollar amount attached. Here’s what we can actually verify, separated from what other sites are guessing.

That last row is the real story. Some sites peg him under $1 million. Others claim $5 to $8 million. Both can’t be right, and the gap exists because amateur NIL money isn’t public record the way PGA Tour prize money is.

The only number anyone can actually check is that $1.584 million check from Minnesota. We ran into this exact same wall of guesswork when we profiled another young star’s finances, so if you want to see how we handled it, check out our Ruoning Yin net worth breakdown here.

Jackson Koivun WITB: Every Club in the Bag at the 3M Open

That 620 MB iron set is the real story here. Most Tour pros have drifted toward more forgiving cavity-backs over the last decade, and Koivun still games a blade from 5-iron through 9-iron. Good ball-strikers can get away with that. Everyone else can’t.

An 8-degree driver head is built for a swing speed most weekend golfers don’t carry. If you want to see where your own numbers actually land against Tour averages instead of guessing, we built a full carry distance chart by swing speed and handicap here.

Jackson Koivun’s Putter and Swing: What Actually Makes Him So Good

Buddy Alexander coached Florida to two national championships across 27 seasons, and he told Golf Channel that Koivun’s putting stroke reminds him of a young Tiger Woods. That’s not a comparison a 27-year college coach throws around casually.

The putter behind that stroke is a Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.5R Tour Prototype mallet with a SuperStroke Zenergy Pistol GT grip. Fred Garcia, his coach since age 10, has a running joke about it. Koivun’s mother once complained that her son kept switching putters too often, and Garcia told her not to worry because Koivun could putt with a Coke bottle.

The swing itself hasn’t changed much since Koivun was a kid grinding on the range at Cinnabar Hills. Garcia still reviews it over video call, tweaking small things like ball position rather than making wholesale changes.

I tried copying his back-nine tempo from the 3M Open slow-motion clips on the range last week. I made it about six swings before I reverted to my normal rush. There’s a patience built into how he swings that’s hard to fake on command.

The Coach, Family and Team Behind Koivun’s Rise

Koivun began hitting balls at Cinnabar Hills at age 6 and started formal lessons with Garcia at 10. By 13, Garcia had him playing against grown men and better players at the club just to toughen him up. When the family relocated to North Carolina years later, Garcia kept coaching him remotely rather than handing him off to a local pro, and that arrangement has never changed.

Auburn head coach Nick Clinard shaped the more visible parts of Koivun’s game, the emotional control and the patience that weren’t there as a freshman. Chris Williams, a former Auburn standout who turned pro in 2013 and never finished better than a tie for 30th in 10 Tour starts, now caddies for Koivun and acts as a sounding board precisely because he knows what going wrong at this level looks like. Koivun’s agent, Lance Young, helped arrange the move to Jupiter, Florida, this spring, close to Panther National, where Koivun has already started building relationships with pros like Justin Thomas and Russell Henley.

None of that guarantees anything on the PGA Tour. It’s just the support system Koivun built before he needed it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How old is Jackson Koivun?

Koivun is 21 years old. He was born May 23, 2005, in San Jose, California, and turns 22 in May 2027.

How tall is Koivun?

Koivun stands 5-foot-10, or 178 centimeters, according to both his Auburn Athletics bio and Wikipedia.

Is Koivun playing in the US Open?

He already did. Koivun played the 2026 US Open at Shinnecock Hills as an amateur and finished tied for 23rd, his final competitive event before turning pro.

Is Koivun playing in the Masters?

Not the 2026 edition. His 3M Open win, though, locked in a full exemption into the 2027 Masters as a PGA Tour champion.

What is Koivun’s net worth?

Nobody outside his camp knows the exact figure. His confirmed PGA Tour earnings sit at $1.584 million after one win, and his pre-pro NIL valuation was reported around $2.5 million.

What high school did Jackson Koivun attend?

His specific high school has never been publicly named in any official record we could find. What’s confirmed is that his family relocated from California to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, before his senior year.

What does Koivun have in his bag?

A near-full Titleist setup: a GT2 driver, GTS3 prototype fairway wood, T250 and T100 irons up top, 620 MB blades from 5-iron through 9-iron, Vokey SM11 wedges and a Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.5R Tour Prototype putter.

Who is Koivun’s swing coach?

Fred Garcia, an assistant pro at Cinnabar Hills Golf Course in San Jose, has coached Koivun since he was 10 years old and still does it remotely by video call.

What’s Next for Koivun

Koivun heads straight into the Rocket Classic next, then the Wyndham Championship in his home state of North Carolina two weeks after that. He needs to climb from No. 70 in the FedExCup standings to lock down a spot in the playoffs, and Presidents Cup captain Brandt Snedeker is reportedly already watching him for September’s team.

Three PGA Tour starts as a pro, one win, and a major championship exemption already banked. That’s not a rookie season. That’s a head start most players never get. For another young player writing her own version of this story right now, see how Ruoning Yin’s rise compares.