Here, in ascending order, is DataGolf’s official ranking of the best amateur golfers since 2010.
Four, Patrick Cantlay; three, Jordan Spieth; two, Jon Rahm … and one, Jackson Koivun.
Wait, what?
Yep, on Friday afternoon, the 20-year-old junior at Auburn University watched his career enter historic trajectory. The principle act was Koivun’s victory at the 2026 SEC Championship, his third SEC Championship in as many collegiate seasons, making him the first player in more than 50 years to accomplish the three-peat.
In doing so, Koivun also moved into first of DataGolf’s all-time Amateur Golfers ranking, which uses strokes gained data to quantify a collegiate player’s skill relative to their fellow division 1 competitors. The ranking, which has captured all amateur golf data since 2010, helps to quantify Koivun’s success at the collegiate level next to some of the stars that have emerged from the NCAA over the last two decades. Now, that ranking has a new job: To quantify just how much better Koivun has been than each of those players.
Per the DataGolf ranking, Koivun’s strokes gained index of +3.25 ranks nearly a tenth of a shot (.09) better than Jon Rahm’s decorated amateur career at Arizona State, and .14 shots better than Jordan Spieth’s at the University of Texas, which springboarded the young Texan into three major championships in the dawn of his pro career.
Of course, the evidence of Koivun ‘s prodigious skill goes much further than just DG. In less than three years at Auburn, Koivun is the program’s all-time winningest player with 10 victories, and is also the holder of the NCAA 36-hole scoring record (25 under), beating a three-decade-old mark set by none other than Tiger Woods. He’s also served as the anchor of a winning Walker Cup team (with three points earned), recorded a top 5 finish in just nine PGA Tour starts, and locked up his future Tour status by proxy of the PGA Tour University Accelerated program. All this to say nothing of his SEC Championship three-peat, which was the first since 1967.
In fact, Koivun has might be trending in an outright historic direction as an amateur player had he found more success in USGA events. At the time of this writing, the biggest gap between Koivun and some of the most decorated amateurs in golf history is his performance at the U.S. Junior Amateur and U.S. Amateur Championships. While the legends of yesteryear (Woods, Nicklaus, Mickelson) each recorded wins in the biggest amateur events (including, in Woods’ case, a record 18 straight matches), Koivun has yet to advance past the quarterfinals.
Should he retain his amateur status through the summer, Koivun should have at least one last chance at amateur glory. The U.S. Amateur will return to Merion outside of Philadelphia in mid-August — giving Koivun a chance to record at victory at one of the USGA’s most historic host sites before the PGA Tour fall season would provide no shortage of playing opportunities, should Koivun turn pro then.
Either way, the resume is already stacked for the next great young player to enter the PGA Tour from the amateur ranks. Whether you’re counting by stats or by hardware, it’s clear the list of most decorated amateurs of the modern era has added a new name: Koivun.
Perhaps now’s the time to start remembering it.
