It’s not every day that you get to play with two multi-time major winners in a PGA Tour event. Let alone as someone who is still an amateur golfer and a college student. Well, Jackson Koivun fulfilled that dream mere days after winning the Walker Cup at Cypress Point. It’s fairly safe to say that he is living a fairytale story right now, and as he admitted it himself, he’s trying to make the most of it.

After nearly beating Scottie Scheffler & Co. in the 2025 Procore Championship, Koivun joined The Smylie Show recently. Kaufman, who is a 1-time PGA Tour champion himself, wanted to know how the 21-year-old dealt with getting the opportunity to play with Justin Thomas & Jordan Spieth during the practice rounds before the Napa Valley event. And Jackson set the stage for how things went during the Monday & Tuesday of the Procore Championship.

“I played Monday with JT & Jordan, and then Tuesday, it was just me and Jordan. It’s just cool to see how they go about their business, and they really dissect the golf course. They really know and figure out where they can miss the golf ball,” Koivun said. As a professional golfer, it’s not just your swings and putts that you need to practice. Before every tournament and round, you also strategize with your caddie and team on how you will approach every hole at different points of the game. Koivun admitted that it is something that he would also like to learn.

Being an amateur golfer, he is still not used to the norms followed by the PGA Tour stars. However, he will start picking them up after he sticks to the schedule and visits all the venues. However, despite his young age, he was wise enough to understand “it’s not where your best shot’s going to go, it’s where your worst shot’s going to go and how can I still score from there?” Mastering the art of saving himself from tough situations is something he could have certainly picked up from someone like Spieth. The 3-time major winner was a short game expert and knew just how to get out of roughs and ditches and still score a par or better. On that note, Kaufman asked him if there were any specific shots he was working on improving to add to his game. And his response perfectly complemented something that he had said a while ago.

Koivun, who is looking to learn the skill of getting out of tough situations to score par or better, told Kaufman, “Just wedges. Their (Thomas & Spieth’s) wedges are so good.” This year, Thomas has certainly picked up his game from the short range. From 125 yards to 50 yards, he’s ranked the best with the wedge on the PGA Tour. Spieth has also been quite popular with the short staff throughout his career. However, he hasn’t been at his best this year.

Having said that, neither of the two pros did what Jackson Koivun achieved at Napa Valley. And that was to make Scottie Scheffler sweat. Let’s see how he did that.

Jackson Koivun was a bigger threat to Scottie Scheffler than Justin Thomas

There was one Justin on the field who was finishing with a respectable score, and it wasn’t Justin Thomas. However, even Justin Hastings couldn’t make the world #1 nervous quite like Jackson Koivun. The amateur golfer was sitting at T2, 3 strokes off the top of the leaderboard. He was one of the top guys when it came to hitting approach shots and finding greens in regulation. Koivun also has great putting stats in Napa Valley.

Comparatively, Thomas is only superior to him around the green. Jackson Koivun was also better than Scottie Scheffler when it came to putting. Had he not made so many errors, then the 21-year-old might have walked out of Silverado Resort with his first PGA Tour victory. While he may be following the path of pros, Koivun needs to remember that he, too, possesses some skills that can help him conquer the big leagues.