Each year, one college golfer gets to share a stage with Jack Nicklaus to receive the Jack Nicklaus National Player of the Year Award. It’s the biggest honor for a collegiate golfer, and getting your hands on it once is a huge deal, but winning it twice puts you in a super-exclusive club that just has two names so far. Most recently, Jackson Koivun became the third.

On June 7, golf journalist Paul Hodowanic broke the news on X. This is Koivun’s second win, with his first coming in 2024 when he was just a freshman. This win now places him alongside only Phil Mickelson and Bryce Molder in Division I history of winning this award twice.

Mickelson won three consecutive times at Arizona State in 1990, 1991, and 1992. No one in Division I has matched that streak, with only Molder from Georgia Tech winning in 1998 and again in 2001. For 25 years, only these two names were on that list. Even one of the golf greats, Tiger Woods, won it just once at Stanford in 1996.

Jackson Koivun meticulously built his resume. He became the first player in 59 years to win three straight SEC individual titles.

Koivun carded 33 of his 40 rounds at or below par, including 23 in a row to conclude the year, paired with an NCAA-record 68.20 scoring average. He also helped Auburn achieve its second victory at the NCAA team title in three years. Over 13 starts in his junior season, Koivun earned 12 top 10s, eight top fives, and six wins.

In 2024, Koivun became the first player in college golf history to sweep all four major national awards in the same season: the Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, Fred Haskins, and Phil Mickelson Awards. Last year, he played in seven PGA Tour events as an amateur and made the cut in six of them.

The Jack Nicklaus Award was established in 1988 by the Golf Coaches Association of America and took on Nicklaus’s name in 1998. It is given for season-long performance across all collegiate divisions, but the Division I award stands out as the most significant. Each year, Nicklaus himself announces the winner at his own tournament. This tradition sets the award apart from others.

The list of past winners shows clearly what the award has come to represent over the years.

Jackson Koivun follows Rahm and Aberg into the PGA Tour

Jon Rahm won this award in 2016 at Arizona State and went on to become one of the most decorated players of his generation on Tour, continuing his success on LIV Golf. In 2023, Ludvig Aberg grabbed it at Texas Tech and made history by jumping straight from college to a full PGA Tour card, a path Koivun has already quietly replicated.

Koivun noted at the time that Aberg’s early Tour trajectory had inspired him with confidence that going straight from college golf to the pros was totally possible. Koivun earned his PGA Tour membership in May 2025 through the Tour’s University Accelerated Program, becoming the youngest player ever to do so. However, he chose to defer it as he had unfinished business.

He wanted to compete in the Walker Cup at Cypress Point, pursue a third NCAA title, and earn major exemptions through the McCormack Medal. He collected all of it. Phil Mickelson, who knows something about this particular award, already marked Koivun down as a future HyFlyers target after watching him finish in the top four at the Procore Championship as an amateur.

Lefty called him an amazing talent destined for greatness, per a report on Mickelson’s public comments about the Auburn star.