In June, he helped lead his college team to a national title, then turned pro.<\/p>\n
In July, he was holding off the world No. 1 and setting a tournament record for his first career win.<\/p>\n
In a whirlwind summer, it was a week to remember for 21-year-old Jackson Koivun, who captured the seventh annual 3M Open championship at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine July 23-26, finishing at 25 under par.<\/p>\n
Koivun helped Auburn win the NCAA championship in June, and was making just his third start as a professional. He held off the world\u2019s top-ranked and tournament runner-up Scottie Scheffler by three shots.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what we train for,\u201d Koivun said. \u201cThat\u2019s the position we all strive to be in, even through college. It\u2019s like you want to be leading a PGA Tour event and that\u2019s what you train for, you work for. Once you\u2019re finally in it, you\u2019ve just got to keep your head down and commit to every single golf shot. Fortunately, it worked out for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koivun was two shots off the pace after firing a 64 in the opening round, then dropped to four strokes back entering the weekend after a 3-under 68 in round two.<\/p>\n
Koivun surged into the lead by three shots after delivering a 61 in round three, including a six-stroke edge on the eventual runner-up Scheffler. Koivun closed with a 66 in the final round.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, I played a great round of golf,\u201d Koivun said. \u201cDefinitely had some nerves coming down on 18. All throughout the crowd I kept hearing, \u2018Scottie\u2019s coming, Scottie\u2019s coming.\u2019 I just tried to tone that out and keep playing the golf I knew I could. Was able to find some good putts coming down the stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt never really feels like you\u2019re going to win until you make the putt, and that\u2019s kind of when all the emotions come crashing down on you. I think I did a really good job this week of staying level-headed, but I felt like that was an appropriate time to show some emotions. \u2026 I\u2019ll be forever indebted to the 3M Open for helping me get my first PGA Tour win.\u201d<\/p>\n
World No. 1 makes 3M debut<\/p>\n
It was the first appearance at the 3M Open for current World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who was greeted with cheers and chants of his name throughout the weekend as he made a late charge to finish in second place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe support this week\u2019s been tremendous,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cThe crowd here has been great, not only to myself, but to the guys I\u2019ve been playing with as well. Yeah, I\u2019ve been with Hideki (Matsuyama) the last few days and they\u2019ve been supporting him as well. It\u2019s been a really fun environment to be part of.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a really good crowd (Thursday) morning, especially for an early tee time. It\u2019s always fun getting to play in front of so<\/p>\n
many people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim sets new course record<\/p>\n
The top round of the tournament \u2014 and in the course\u2019s history \u2014 belonged to Michael Kim in Friday\u2019s second round, as he fired a 59. It was just the 16th sub-60 score in PGA history, bettering the previous 3M Open bests of 60 by Adam Svensson in last year\u2019s first round, and Kurt Kitayama in last year\u2019s third round.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I play tournament golf, I\u2019m most proud of the moments where it\u2019s \u2014 you know, this is kind of you have to step up, you have to take the shots, you have to make the swings and really go for the shots you\u2019re trying to hit and not kind of be too protective. I made a really nice birdie putt on 16. It had a lot of break to it and it went in dead-center. There\u2019s a lot of water on 17 and 18, and I just kind of told myself like hey, this is the way \u2014 this is the moment to get into the history books and let\u2019s go for it, let\u2019s not try to luck our way into it, let\u2019s try to step up and hit some really good shots. To be able to make some putts, and the putts that I made on 17 and 18 is what I get most from PGA Tour golf, from golf in general, so really proud of that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crowd started building up maybe on 16 green and all<\/p>\n
the way onto 18. This is one of those tournaments where the local crowd really shows out for this tournament. I wasn\u2019t even sure if I was going to play this week to be honest, but happy I came and shot a low score in front of the great fans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim finished the tournament tied for 10th place.<\/p>\n
Merritt shines<\/p>\n
Spring Lake Park High School 2004 graduate Troy Merritt was another fan favorite at the tournament, finishing tied for 39th place at 10 under par.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it\u2019s just go out and have fun,\u201d Merritt said after the second round. \u201cI know a lot of people out in the galleries this week and they\u2019re going to be massive this weekend, too, especially if Scottie keeps playing well. It\u2019s just going to be a lot of fun. I\u2019m just<\/p>\n
here to enjoy it and hopefully throw out a few more birdies than bogeys this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, on how players such as himself handled the hot playing conditions?<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an old man, I sweat a lot more,\u201d Merritt said. \u201cI hope the ball goes just a little bit further.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In June, he helped lead his college team to a national title, then turned pro. In July, he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[4071,208,56],"class_list":["post-44033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scottie-scheffler","tag-blaine","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}