Jackson Koivun had to take two tests Saturday night before his final round at the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational on Sunday.
“Finance and kinesiology,” Koivun said following his closing 75 at Bay Hill Club & Lodge.
The sophomore at Auburn has learned plenty during a flurry of PGA Tour starts he has made dating to last summer. But in the middle of the school year, Koivun said time management is one of the biggest keys he has learned.
The lone amateur in the field, Koivun made the cut after shooting matching even-par 72s during the first two rounds. That earned him his 19th point in PGA Tour University Accelerated, meaning a top 10 on the weekend would make him the latest amateur to earn their PGA Tour card via the Accelerated avenue.
Koivun’s time has to wait, however. He shot 75 on both weekend rounds and finished at 6 over for the week, though not a bad result for the 20-year-old who’s the reigning college player of the year.
“Obviously played pretty solid on Thursday, Friday, and the weekend kind of got to me,” Koivun said. “Course got really tough, and I wasn’t hitting it like I wanted to. But just trying to take notes, trying to learn everything I can so I can just soak up information from these guys.”
Koivun said he likely won’t make another PGA Tour start until this summer, instead focusing on trying to help Auburn defend its national title. But Koivun doesn’t need to worry about making another start on Tour because he’s going to earn his card by this summer.
Koivun had an exemption into the API thanks to his participation on the Arnold Palmer Cup team last summer. It’s an event he’s a virtual lock to represent the U.S. in again this summer, and doing so will net him two points and get him past the 20-point threshold, which rewards a PGA Tour card.
Even if Koivun doesn’t play the Palmer Cup, the world’s secnod-ranked amateur is bound to be one of the United States’ top players in September in the 2025 Walker Cup at Cypress Point in California. A Walker Cup appearance nets three Accelerated points, thus another avenue for Koivun to earn his card.
Once he reaches 20 points, Koivun will join Vanderbilt senior Gordon Sargent and Florida State junior Luke Clanton as players to earn a card via Accelerated. Clanton, the top-ranked amateur in the world, did so last week after making the cut at the Cognizant Classic.
Sargent earned his card as a junior and decided to return to school this year, and he’ll turn pro after the college season. Clanton, though he hasn’t publicly announced his plans, is likely to turn pro considering his PGA Tour success since last summer.
For Koivun, he previously stated he would likely come back to Auburn for his junior year, even if he earned his card before that.
His time to make that decision will come. For now, he has another week under his belt preparing for his future.
“It’s just one step closer,” he said of his performance at Arnie’s Place. “I’m very close. It’s right in front of me. My time will come when I get that card and, yeah, it means a lot.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: When will amateur Jackson Koivun gets his PGA Tour card? Soon enough
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