In February of 2018, this website published about 200 words on a junior golfer who had just earned medalist honors in Open division qualifying for the San Francisco City Championship at Lincoln Park. He shot 72 to beat a field of 160 players, most of them decades older. He was 12 years old.
On Tuesday evening, that same player was named to the United States Presidents Cup team.
Jackson Koivun was U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker's final selection, revealed during a live selection show on Golf Channel. The 21-year-old PGA Tour rookie joins a 12-man American side that will face the Internationals at Medinah Country Club outside Chicago from Sept. 24-27.
A player this site has followed for eight years
For AmateurGolf.com, Tuesday's announcement closes a loop that has been open since that winter morning at Lincoln Park. Koivun was an AmateurGolf.com member for years and competed in AmateurGolf.com Tour events as a teenager in Northern California before the rest of the golf world caught up.
The archive tracks the climb almost year by year. He upset the co-medalist and No. 1 seed at the 2023 U.S. Amateur on his way to the quarterfinals. He won the Ben Hogan Award as a freshman at Auburn, then won it again to join Jon Rahm and Ludvig Åberg as the award's only two-time recipients. He took the 2025 Mark H. McCormack Medal as the world's leading amateur and finished that year at No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. Last spring he completed a three-peat of SEC individual titles, tying the conference record.
By the time he announced he would turn professional after the U.S. Open, Koivun had 11 collegiate victories, two sweeps of college golf's three major player-of-the-year awards, two NCAA team championships at Auburn, and a PGA Tour card already secured through PGA Tour University Accelerated. Our full look back at his amateur years is collected in Before They Turned Pro: Jackson Koivun.
From Cypress Point to Medinah
Koivun's team-golf pedigree is the part of this résumé that likely mattered most to Snedeker. He was the headliner among the 18 players invited to the USA Walker Cup practice session in Jupiter, and he delivered at Cypress Point, posting a 3-1 record that included a 2-0 mark in singles.
Amateur golf's team competitions have long served as the proving ground for American professional team rooms. Koivun made the jump in roughly 12 months.
A rookie season that forced the issue
Koivun closed his amateur career by sharing low amateur honors at the U.S. Open, turned professional in June, and won the 3M Open in his third career start, holding off world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler with a tournament-record 25-under total. He then hung onto the final FedEx Cup playoff berth by a single shot at the Wyndham Championship and finished T-24 at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
The captain was blunt about the appeal. "I'm just so impressed by this young man," Snedeker said, adding that Koivun brings value both in the team room and in pairings.
Who he passed
Because he started his professional season late, Koivun sat 48th in the U.S. qualifying standings. Snedeker went past Ben Griffin, who ranked eighth, and J.J. Spaun, who ranked 10th, to take him. Only one player has ever been younger on a U.S. Presidents Cup team: Jordan Spieth, who was 20 in 2013.
The 2026 U.S. Presidents Cup team
Automatic qualifiers: Scottie Scheffler, Cameron Young, Wyndham Clark, Sam Burns, Russell Henley, Collin Morikawa
Captain's picks: Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Chris Gotterup, Jacob Bridgeman, Jackson Koivun
Captain: Brandt Snedeker
Gotterup, Bridgeman and Koivun are all Presidents Cup rookies. Geoff Ogilvy captains the International side.
Why it matters here
Every so often the amateur game produces a player whose trajectory is visible long before the mainstream notices. Koivun is that player, and the paper trail is on this site: a 12-year-old medalist at a municipal course in San Francisco, a junior standout, an AmateurGolf.com Tour competitor, a U.S. Amateur quarterfinalist, a Walker Cup point-scorer, the world's No. 1 amateur, and now a Presidents Cup pick.
Casual golf fans were surprised on Tuesday night. Readers who have been following the amateur game were not.
Equipment note: Koivun's 3M Open victory came with the Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.5R — our full look at the putter is here.
