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USA Today
05-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Amateur Jackson Koivun is four shots off the lead at 2025 John Deere Classic after 54 holes
Jackson Koivun's resume is already stacked will accolades. Might he add a PGA Tour victory to it as well? The amateur from Auburn fired a third-round 68 to follow up scores of 70-64 at the 2025 John Deere Classic. That has him at 11 under and in a tie for 10th at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, Illinois. This tournament has a PGA Tour-best 24 first-time winners (since 1970). It also boasts the only teenage victory (Jordan Spieth, 2013) as well as one of the Tour's 14 59s (Paul Goydos, 2010). With those kind of superlatives, having an amateur win would just be another notch in its belt. But first, there are still 18 holes to play, and Koivun does have nine guys ahead of him on the leaderboard, not to mention the four others he's tied with. Still, the kid is having a great week. "I'm just trying to climb up the leaderboard as much as I can every day," he said. "I know if I go play well tomorrow I can definitely get in contention." Koivun earned his PGA Tour card after his finish at the NCAAs in early June, but he's choosing to defer his status until 2026. He'll be a junior at Auburn this fall. This week marks his sixth PGA Tour start and third this season. So far he has two made cuts and a missed cut at the U.S. Open. Nick Dunlap is the most recent amateur to win a PGA Tour event, doing so at the 2024 American Express. There been eight all-time. Koivun says he and Dunlap are good friends. "Nick is a great dude and I played a lot of golf with him. It's obviously very inspiring to see what he did about a year ago now. Obviously to be one the few ams to win a professional event would be great. At the end of the day I just got to go give it my best shot and be happy with the result."
Reuters
14-03-2025
- Sport
- Reuters
'It's pretty gross': Xander Schauffele blunt about state of his game
March 14 - Xander Schauffele is likely to extend his PGA Tour-best streak of cuts made to 59 consecutive tournaments, but the two-time major winner was blunt about the state of his game after the second round of The Players Championship on Friday. "It's pretty gross, to be completely honest," Schauffele told reporters after carding a 1-under-par 71 at TPC Sawgrass. Even par through the first 35 holes of the tournament, Schauffele knew he needed a birdie on his final hole of the day to have a strong chance of playing the weekend. After starting on the back nine Friday, he closed his round by two-putting from 50 1/2 feet for birdie on the par-5 ninth hole. "I was thinking about the cut line for sure," Schauffele acknowledged. "Knew I needed to make birdie." Schauffele returned from a six-week layoff to allow an intercostal strain in the rib cartilage on his right side to heal, and he tied for 40th at last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational. He arrived at TPC Sawgrass this week looking to work back into form with the Masters less than a month away, and Schauffele will at least have two more rounds to work on every aspect of his game. "Not hitting it close enough, to duffing chips, to missing every fairway, to hitting fairways to missing greens," Schauffele said when asked if the issues are beyond his putting woes this week. "So if I can eke out this cut, that would be nice. But the game feels pretty bad." Schauffele said he is supposed to restrict his practice sessions due to the ongoing recovery from the injury, but intended to "blow that out of the water" on the range Friday afternoon. "Surprisingly it feels kind of close, which is, I know, pretty sick to say. I know a lot of guys say that, but I'll get a little bit cozier on the range and kind of get in a decent pattern, and then as soon as I get on the course it seems to get a little bit more crooked. I'm not sure if it's something setup related or something that I'm not doing or not doing on the course that I do on the range, but it feels pretty bad." Asked if he was potentially being too hard on himself, Schauffele didn't let off the gas in his self-assessment. "I almost missed the cut on what is a pretty easy course right now, so I don't think so," he said. "No. I think I'm being just fine on myself."
