These young guns sure are hungry.
Just a week after Jackson Koivun held off Scottie Scheffler to win his first PGA Tour title in just his third start, Michael Thorbjornsen held off Xander Schauffele to capture his maiden tour victory in his 65th start.
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It’s not exactly apples-to-apples, as Thorbjornsen had racked up 10 top-10 finishes over the past few years and tied for second place at the John Deere Classic in 2024 just after turning professional after topping the PGA Tour University standings. But the overall fact remains, these young guys are here to win. Early and often.
“It kind of got to the point a little bit of—is it ever going to happen,” Thorbjornsen said Sunday while holding the Rocket Classic trophy.
It’d only been two years, but he was wondering if he was going to win on the PGA Tour? That’s no longer a concern.
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It’s not that Thorbjornsen was overlooked Sunday at Detroit Golf Club, but here were so many names in the mix early that it was easy to think others may prevail instead. But over the last two hours the 24-year-old from Massachusetts, the man ranked 68th in the world, calmly and methodically tore the inward-nine to shreds.
After just two in the first four holes, he made five straight pars. Then they came—birdies at 10, 12 (chip in), 14 and 15. Suddenly, Schaufele, Davis Riley, Chris Kirk, Rasmus Hojgaard and Michael Brennan, among others, had company.
Playing the home hole with a one-shot lead, Thorbjornsen drove it 308 yards, hit a 168-yard approach to 26 feet and believed a two-putt would, at worse, get him into a playoff. Then … boom. The birdie slammed into the bottom of the cup from the side door for him to shoot 30 on the back and seven-under 63 on the day. No one else mounted a push from behind and his 18-under total was good enough to win by two.
“The feeling’s unbelievable,” the Stanford University product said. “It still doesn’t really—I don’t really know how to feel. I’m feeling a lot of things, I can’t really put the words to it. Just extremely, extremely grateful to be sitting here right now.”
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This season has produced six missed cuts and two top-10 finishes. The man who uses a 10-finger grip started working with Sean Foley a month ago—he had only used his father, Thorbjorn, his whole life—and started to see better results, including a T-7 at the Scottish Open. Still, he entered the week only 69th in FedEx Cup points, just one position ahead of Koivun. But after opening with a 69, the light came on and 64-66-63 the final three days were plenty good enough.
“Mikey just played, he played incredible,” said Schauffele, who closed with 65 to collect his sixth top-10 of the year, but without a victory. “If you look at his stretch for the last 12 holes, he played incredible golf.”
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Gregory Shamus
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From seemingly out of the mix, to winning easily in just the span of nine holes. Mighty impressive. Riley ended third, Hojgaard was solo fourth while Hideki Matsuyama, Matt Wallace and Kristoffer Ventura tied for fifth place, but were all five shots adrift.
Koivun, the 3M Open winner, had two more starts to make his case for a playoff position and for a spot on the U.S. Presidents Cup team, which was much discussed the past week. He made three birdies in the first eight holes Sunday at the Rocket Mortgage and then made two more on his 11th and 12th holes of the day, but bogeys on two of his last three holes put him into a 31st place tie for the week and 70th in playoff points, exactly where he started. He’ll have one last chance this week in North Carolina to make some more noise or, at least, lose no ground.
Thorbjornsen is safely now into the postseason, likely on the mind of U.S. Presidents Cup captain Brandt Snedeker, and now eligible to play in the Masters, among other great things that come with the Rocket victory, like a $1.8 million payday. None of that mattered late Sunday when there was only one thing on Thorbjornsen’s mind.
“I’m still thinking about what I’m going to eat,” he said. “I’m just really hungry right now.”
See? The young guns, they’re always hungry.
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