The Next Generation of American Golf Stars Is Already Here

For two straight weeks on the PGA Tour, the winner was someone who secured his first job by being top of his class in college.

Both Jackson Koivun and Michael Thorbjornsen earned their first tour cards through PGA Tour University, a recently introduced pathway that allows at least one college golf star immediate access to the big boys’ tour without having to go to Q School or the Korn Ferry.

Their first victories came in impressive fashion. Koivun, 21, prevailed in his third start as a pro by three shots at the 3M Open despite Scottie Scheffler breathing down his neck. Then on Sunday, Thorbjornsen, at the ripe old age of 24, won the Rocket Classic with a final-round 63, beating another highly regarded golfer, Xander Schauffele, by two strokes.

Thorbjornsen was the 2024 beneficiary of the PGA Tour U pathway, while Koivun qualified for his card in 2025 and could have come out even earlier. He chose to spend another year at Auburn, chasing a national title and presumably more of that sweet, sweet NIL money.

Now, a Presidents Cup is coming up next month at Medinah, and people have begun rightfully asking whether Koivun should get a spot on the U.S. team, a way to start preparing him for team golf in the years to come.

To that I say: Is there also room on the team for Thorbjornsen? For Chris Gotterup? For Akshay Bhatia?

The next generation of American golf stars is here. New blood joins the PGA Tour all the time -- I’m old enough to remember when Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler were the young hotshots, and at the start of the decade Collin Morikawa and Matthew Wolff (rest in peace) were spoken of this way.

But this new cohort feels different. It’s deeper than just Koivun and Thorbjornsen, much deeper. Several youngsters could pop off and win a tournament any given week.

Seven players who’ve won on tour this year (including six Americans) were 26 or younger, counting another former college star in Gotterup, who claimed five tournaments and three this year alone before his 27th birthday in July. Jacob Bridgeman (26) and Bhatia (24) are not household names, but they won signature events at courses that inarguably are household names -- Pebble Beach and Bay Hill.

It says something about the quality of college golf in this era, the way it prepares young stars for life as a professional. They surely have access to better facilities, coaching and training regimens than one or two generations before them. Bhatia didn’t take the college route, but the others here did.

But moreover, Koivun is the kind of prospect everyone saw coming in the golf world. He was the No. 1 amateur in the world, helped Auburn win multiple championships and picked up every major individual accolade along the way. He’s that generational prospect who needs to be part of every U.S. Ryder Cup conversation for the next decade or two.

Maybe you’ve heard, but the United States is getting its tail whipped in the Ryder Cup lately. It’s not enough to have a Scheffler and a Schauffele in the team room. The Americans are in the process of rethinking everything about their approach to the biennial tournament against Europe.

To me, that should include better utilizing the Presidents Cup against the International team as prep for future Ryder Cup prospects, the Koivuns and Gotterups. After all, these are the Ryder Cup players of the future, the immediate future, the guys that will shove Patrick Cantlay off the team once and for all.

By the way, some of those Schefflers and Schauffeles can be at Medinah as older brothers who begin the team-building, wisdom-imparting process. But these guys also have families with young children at home, and it wouldn’t be a sin if they wanted to take this Presidents Cup off.

There’s an old tagline from PGA marketing of years gone by, years before any of the players mentioned today were alive and kicking: “These guys are good.” For the Presidents Cup, let’s amend that to, respectfully, “These kids are good.”