Phenom Jackson Koivun named to U.S. Presidents Cup team

Star PGA Tour rookie Jackson Koivun will make his professional international team debut next month, as U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker picked the 21-year-old phenom for his Presidents Cup team.

It’s a bold move by Snedeker, moving away from the last few United States teams at the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup where experience has been prioritized. Instead, he chose to add young blood and introduce a potential long-term star to the American team room.

Koivun turned professional in June after the U.S. Open following a standout collegiate career at Auburn and won the 3M Open in his third professional start.

Snedeker’s other picks for the event, which will be Sept. 24-27 at Medinah Country Club outside of Chicago, are Chris Gotterup, Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay and Jacob Bridgeman.

While Schauffele, Thomas and Cantlay are Cup mainstays, Gotterup and Bridgeman both turn 27 this year and make their Cup debuts. Gotterup broke into a new tier on the PGA Tour with three wins in 2026, while Bridgeman held off Rory McIlroy to win the Genesis Invitational in February. But Snedeker did leave off red-hot Ryan Gerard, Ben Griffin (2025 Ryder Cup team member), J.J. Spaun (2025 U.S. Open winner) and 24-year-old Akshay Bhatia (14th on the Presidents Cup point list).

These picks fill out a team of automatic qualifiers on points in Scottie Scheffler, Cameron Young, Wyndham Clark, Sam Burns, Russell Henley and Collin Morikawa, all of whom have played on U.S. teams. All but Clark were on the losing Ryder Cup side last year.

On the International side, captain Geoff Ogilvy — whose design team led the renovation of Medinah — used his six picks on Corey Conners, Nico Echavarria, Nick Taylor, Sungjae Im, Ryo Hisatsune and Christiaan Bezuidenhout.

The International automatic qualifiers were primarily team stalwarts like Adam Scott, Hideki Matsuyama, Min Woo Lee and Tom Kim, joined by 39-year-old journeyman Ryan Fox, who broke into his first Cup team after his Open Championship win in July at Royal Birkdale.

The U.S. has won every Presidents Cup since 2003 (which was a tie). It’s 13-1-1 in the competition, with the one International win coming in the third iteration in 1998.

And this year, there’s concern that gap could be as wide as ever with the six highest-ranked players in the competition on DataGolf all coming from the U.S. side. The highest-ranked International star is Si Woo Kim (No. 11), and 10 of the top 11 players are American.

Why Koivun makes sense

On paper, Koivun hasn’t “earned” his way onto this team with points and years of play. But going purely by who earned points is how the U.S. side often limits itself in team competitions (cough, Ryder Cup, cough). The U.S. points system already puts a large onus on rewarding players for past play, sometimes as long as 16 months ago. Snedeker going with upside and fostering a future is the kind of decision-making the team should do more often.

Compare it with Luke Donald and the European team taking Ludvig Aberg in a very similar situation before the 2023 Ryder Cup with far bigger stakes on the line. Aberg hadn’t even won on tour yet, but it was clear he would be part of European teams for a long time, so Donald bet on the talent. He and then-21-year-old Nicolai Hojgaard got their chance, and that core helped Europe win consecutive Ryder Cups in 2023 and 2025.

While we shouldn’t place too much expectation on Koivun, he’s one of the most accomplished college stars in a decade, and his excellent play has already pushed him as high as No. 27 in the world on DataGolf. It’s the right move.

Biggest surprise

Bridgeman over Gerard. They are roughly the same age, so either way it’s a nice young player with plenty of potential. And it’s not as if one has a more clear-cut upside. But Gerard has been one of the hottest players on the PGA Tour. In the last three months, Gerard made a playoff at The Memorial, finished T9 at the Open Championship and earned solo third at the Tour Championship last week. He ranks No. 17 on DataGolf.

Bridgeman, who ranks No. 21, announced himself with a massive win at the Genesis Invitational in February and a T5 at the Players Championship a month later. But he registered just one top-25 finish from April through mid-August. To his credit, he did end the season with a solo ninth at the BMW Championship and T4 at the Tour Championship to establish form.

Gerard has just been more consistent.

International hope?

It’s a tough hill for the International team to climb. Nobody will deny that. Ogilvy had to pick five players outside the DataGolf top 60 players in the world, so on paper they don’t have much of a chance.

But golf is a volatile game, and Ogilvy does have the advantage of being the resident expert on Medinah’s renovation. The best chance for the team is Si Woo Kim leaning into the fun, performative character he played at the 2024 Presidents Cup. He’s been one of the best players on tour this year with seven top-5 finishes and 15 top-20s, but none of those turned into wins.

The International crew also has veteran stars like Scott, Matsuyama and Tom Kim. If they show up and get the crowd going, who knows what will happen.