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TPC Twin Cities spent all week rooting for one man, and it wasn’t Jackson Koivun. The 21-year-old heard Scottie Scheffler‘s name chanted on every hole and just kept his head down. On Sunday he closed the deal with a bogey-free 66, beating the World No. 1 by three shots to win the 3M Open and pick up his first PGA Tour title.

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Scheffler was asked afterward what it takes for a young player to close one out with a real chase behind him, and he was blunt with his answer.

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“I think anytime you’re trying to win for the first time, it’s awfully difficult, especially for a young guy coming out of college. I think that shows not only how talented a player he is, but I think the mental strength he has as well,” he said at the press conference.

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Rightfully so. A gallery stacked against him only makes what Koivun pulled off harder to ignore. He’d built the cushion Saturday, carding a 10-under 61 with a tournament-record 28 on the back nine, and took a three-shot lead into Sunday at 20-under.

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Scheffler started the day six shots back, tied for ninth, and needed something special just to get into the picture. He birdied his first hole and made the turn three-under, short of the number he wanted.

“Depending on how Jackson played, I knew I was going to need a really low number regardless,” Scheffler said. “I wanted to get something really low on the front nine and put myself on the leaderboard. I didn’t quite have that, so I wasn’t able to really apply too much pressure early on.”

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Koivun, meanwhile, started his round quietly. He made the turn at just 3-under, nothing flashy, but he kept his advantage intact. That steadiness turned out to be the most important factor, because Scheffler was about to make his move.

Scheffler birdied three in a row on the 10th, 11th, and 12th to reach 20-under, pulling to within three shots of the lead, but Koivun pushed back with a birdie of his own on the 12th to stretch it back out to four with six holes left. Scheffler wasn’t done, though. He found another gear coming home, birdieing 16 and 18 to shoot 63 and reach 22-under for the week, a closing burst that briefly cut Koivun’s lead to just two shots.

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But Koivun had an answer waiting. He turned a great drive into an eagle look at the drivable par-4 16th, settling for a birdie instead that pushed his lead back out to three. From there, he never let Scheffler get any closer, making pars on 17 and 18 to seal the win.

The Auburn University product played his final 36 holes without a bogey and finished at 25-under, setting a new 3M Open scoring record.

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“All throughout the crowd, I kept hearing, ‘Scottie’s coming, Scottie’s coming.’ I just tried to tone that out and keep playing the golf I knew I could,” Koivun said.

Scheffler, for his part, made sure it never turned into a coronation, carding rounds of 64 and 63 to post the clubhouse lead before Koivun closed it out.

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What’s next for Scheffler and Koivun

Koivun turned pro just last month, skipping his final year at Auburn to chase this. One win doesn’t change that calculation, it validates it. He’s now in the FedEx Cup conversation and can pick and choose the rest of his schedule with real leverage. But talk to Koivun or Scheffler about Sunday, and neither one lingers on the scorecard. What stuck with both of them was that a 21-year-old held a lead on the world No. 1 and didn’t blink.

This isn’t new territory for him, even if the outcome usually went the other way. He fell 1 down to Nick Dunlap in the 2023 U.S. Amateur quarterfinals, and finished runner-up at the Jones Cup a year later. Sunday was the first time that kind of pressure actually broke his way against a player of Scheffler’s caliber. It also puts him ahead of Gordon Sargent and Luke Clanton, the two players who came through the PGA Tour University Accelerated program before him. Neither has won this fast.

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For Scheffler, the playoffs are where this needs to turn into something more than a good weekend. Shooting 64 and 63 says his putter is coming around at the right moment. But it’s still five runner-up finishes since January without a single win, and that number won’t stop following him around until he actually breaks through.

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Roshni Dhawan

381 Articles

Roshni Dhawan is a Golf Writer at EssentiallySports, covering the financial and human side of the professional game. Her reporting centers on player earnings and tournament economics, from net-worth profiles of pros such as Sahith Theegala to the prize-money breakdown at the 2026 U.S. Open, alongside explainer features that introduce readers to the tour's lesser-known names, including her profile of Harry Higgs. She also reports on everything that define a tournament week, covering on-course conduct, rules decisions, and the fan and media reaction that follows, with much of her 2026 work centered on the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. Roshni's background is in research and brand strategy, which informs the accuracy and structure she brings to her coverage. She works methodically, prioritizing verification and the detail that a strong earnings or profile piece depends on.

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Pulkit Prabhav

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