Young guns: Golf's influx of youthful talent is on full display at 2025 John Deere Classic
Held at TPC Deere Run in Moline, Illinois, the JDC has produced 24 first-time winners since 1970 — the most of any tournament on the PGA Tour. Roger Maltbie nabbed his first career victory at the John Deere Classic in 1975. David Toms did the same 22 years later.
Then there's Jordan Spieth, who, at 19 years old, was granted a sponsor's exemption to compete in the 2013 John Deere Classic. He holed out from a greenside bunker on the final hole to force a playoff against David Hearn and hometown hero Zach Johnson, which Spieth went on to win.
Twelve years and 13 wins later, that legendary shot still belongs near the top of Spieth's long highlight reel.
The PGA Tour's stop in the Quad Cities is often overlooked in golf circles — chalked up as the event for players who need FedEx Cup points while others enjoy a holiday weekend at home. But there's no denying that the John Deere Classic has historically served as a breeding ground for the game's biggest stars.
Jackson Koivun, who is No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings, is in the field at TPC Deere Run this week as a sponsor's exemption. As a freshman at Auburn, Koivun became the first player to win all four major men's collegiate honors in the same year: The Haskins Award, the Jack Nicklaus Award, the Ben Hogan Award, and the Phil Mickelson Award.
He's the perfect candidate to reinforce the narrative that the John Deere Classic is a launching pad for the game's future stars.
"Obviously, it's really cool to have a bunch of sponsors' exemptions and amateurs play well here," Koivun said in a press conference Wednesday. "It just shows that it's doable. Just got to keep that in the back of my mind and trust my game and myself."
Other young guns in this week's field — like 2025 Haskins Award winner David Ford, 2025 NCAA Individual Champion Michael La Sasso, and 2025 Ping All-American Ben James — fit the bill, too.
It's a brotherhood of youthful talent.
"We're all really good friends. That's definitely something that's cool," Koivun said. "We definitely compete against each other a lot, but it's definitely friendly competition. Me and La Sasso, we live about 20 minutes from each other in North Carolina, so we play a lot of golf together. Ben is an awesome dude. We've played a lot of tournaments together and going back even into junior golf. So there is definitely a sense of camaraderie there."
It's a sign of the times in a game that seems to be getting younger by the day. Aldrich Potgieter, a 20-year-old from South Africa, won the Rocket Classic just days ago.
"It shows just how golf has kind of changed in the past few years," Koivun said. "I mean, I look at junior golfers and I'm like, 'Wow, these kids are really good.' Even though I was a junior golfer three years ago. It's crazy the leap they've made."
Just ask Johnson, the 49-year-old Iowan who is making his 23rd consecutive appearance at the John Deere Classic this week.
"We've got athletes playing this game at a young age that could probably go a different direction in sports, but this sport grabbed them, for good measure, because it is awesome," Johnson said. "It's daunting, it's scary, but it's fantastic, if that makes sense. As a competitor, as an athlete out here, the youth of this game is impressive."
Similar to Johnson, the John Deere Classic is also a home game of sorts for Koivun. He grew up in North Carolina, but his father is a Quad Cities native.
"[There's] a sense of familiarity here," Koivun said. "We got a little bit of family still left in these areas, so it's nice to be able to come back. Obviously, my dad grew up here, so he's got a lot of friends from high school days here, so hopefully I'll get a little nice crowd around here."
Koivun is making his fourth PGA Tour start this year. He made the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open (T-56) in January and the Arnold Palmer Invitational (T-48) before missing the cut by just one stroke at the U.S. Open. This week, he's "not trying to have too many expectations," but in golf's land of opportunity, anything is possible.
"I feel like my game suits this golf course pretty well. I mean, years past you just need to make a lot of birdies out here to play well, so if I can get that putter hot, I'll feel pretty good about myself."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Venus Williams receives wild-card entry for US Open mixed doubles at 45 years old
Venus Williams is 45 years old and about to play in a Grand Slam. The longtime tennis star received a wild-card entry into the mixed doubles field of the US Open on Tuesday, the tournament announced, setting her up to play alongside partner Reilly Opelka at Flushing Meadows. She will be joined by several other stars in the field, including Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek. When she takes the court, it will be Williams' first appearance at a Grand Slam in any field since the same tournament in 2023, when she entered the singles draw via another wild card and was eliminated in the first round by qualifier Greet Minnen. Since then, Williams has been mostly inactive while dealing with health issues, including a surgery to remove uterine fibroids. She made her return last week at the D.C. Open, where she won a singles match and a doubles match for the first time since 2016. Williams surprised former NCAA champion Peyton Stearns, then ranked 35th in the world, in the first round of the singles draw before losing to fifth-seed Magdalena Fręch in the second round. Opelka, Williams' doubles partner, is currently 74th on the ATP Tour men's singles rankings. He is 27 years old and notably tied for the tour's tallest-ever player at 6-foot-11, which gives him one of the nastiest serves in tennis. Williams is a 23-time Grand Slam champion, with seven singles titles, 14 doubles titles and two mixed doubles titles. She played her first US Open in 1997, when she made the singles finals at 17 years old. She has nothing to prove at this stage, but she raised some eyebrows last week when asked why she decided to return to tennis in her mid-40s. Venus Williams is doing this for the health insurance (sort of) At the end of her first-round post-match interview, Williams provided a small peak behind the curtain of how professional athletes go about healthcare, revealing that she was actually on COBRA, which allows employees to stay on their employer's health insurance after losing benefits. Here's what she said: 'I had to come back for the insurance, because they informed me earlier this year I'm on COBRA. So that's like, I got to get my benefits on ... You guys know what it's like. Let me tell you, I am always at the doctor, so I need this insurance.' To be clear, Williams was joking. She said all that with a smile and called it a "fun and funny moment" after her second match. However, many people and outlets took the statement quite seriously, with some of them using it as a jumping-off point to discuss broader healthcare issues. It's true that health insurance coverage is an issue for many retiring athletes. Active professional athletes get some of the best health insurance in the world, but having to figure out coverage after retirement is a challenge for many people who just exited the most lucrative stage of their lives. While clarifying the tongue-in-cheek moment following the second match, Williams said in the same breath that it was a "serious issue" and one "that people are dealing with." With $42.7 million in career earnings from her WTA career and likely much more than that from endorsements, Williams isn't one of those people (barring astonishing financial mismanagement). Still, given the choice, she will take the WTA's insurance because it gives her one fewer thing to worry about. But it's a stretch to say she's still playing because she needs the insurance.
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Dan Hurley's legendary father wanted him to take Lakers' coaching job
While the Los Angeles Lakers were looking to make JJ Redick their next head coach late in the spring of 2024, they made a surprising, high-profile detour when they courted Dan Hurley, the coach at the University of Connecticut, for that same job. At the time, the Huskies had just won the men's NCAA championship for the second year in a row, and Hurley wanted to go for a three-peat. But while he was tempted to come out to Los Angeles to coach the world's most famous basketball team, the Tri-State area native elected to stay in Storrs. His father, Bob Hurley, was a legendary high school basketball coach at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, N.J. He admitted in a recent interview on Jon Rothstein's 'Inside College Basketball Now' that the elder Hurley wanted him to take the job with the Purple and Gold. The younger Hurley explained one reason why he didn't take his father's advice to come to the Lakers. 'The thing with my dad is, at different points in my career, he's advised us to make the move and take the job, and he never did. I always took my dad's advice on career advancement with a heavy grain of salt, because he never left St. Anthony,' Dan Hurley told Rothstein. 'The one thing I don't listen to Bob Hurley Sr. about is how to advance my career, because he never left his high school when he could have coached at any level.' As it turned out, Redick did a fine job in his first season as the Lakers' coach. Although they lost in the first round of the NBA playoffs in five games to the Minnesota Timberwolves, he guided them to the third-best record in the Western Conference. In doing so, he had to overcome a couple of extended slumps, off-the-court obstacles and February's humongous trade for Luka Doncic. Meanwhile, the Huskies failed to win their third straight title and lost in the second round of the NCAA tournament to the University of Florida. Lakers fans felt a measure of karma and even schadenfreude when the loss occurred.
NBC News
4 hours ago
- NBC News
Scottie Scheffler rallies to win BMW Championship for 5th victory of the year
OWINGS MILLS, Md. — The numbers Scottie Scheffler is compiling have been drawing comparisons with Tiger Woods. The world's No. 1 player had a Tiger-like moment with the trophy on the line and a club in his hand Sunday in the BMW Championship. His 82-foot chip on the 17th — the hardest hole in the final round at Caves Valley — landed about 60 feet short and rolled the rest of the way, picking up speed, losing speed dropping on the final turn. The birdie all but wrapped up another win, his fifth PGA Tour title this year. It was reminiscent of Woods delivering magic to overshadow his sublime skill, his chip-in from behind the 16th green at the Memorial, his chip-in for eagle in the World Cup in Japan. Scheffler already had erased a four-shot deficit against hard-luck Robert MacIntyre in five holes. He was clinging to a one-shot lead on the 17th, a daunting par 3 with a back right pin and water right. Scheffler was in the left rough, the safe spot, facing a shot that a dozen players had chipped over the green. 'I knew it was just going to be really fast, and do my best to get it down there and give myself a good look for par,' he said. 'When it came out, it came out how we wanted to and then it started breaking and it started looking better and better. 'And yeah, it was definitely nice to see that one go in.' Scheffler closed with a 3-under 67 for a two-shot victory and became the first player since Woods — there's that name again — in 2006 and 2007 to win at least five times on the PGA Tour in consecutive years. MacIntyre didn't make a birdie until the 16th hole but stayed in the game after losing his big lead, mostly when Scheffler began missing short putts. MacIntyre pulled within one shot of the lead going to the 17th when Scheffler worked his magic and had to settle for another runner-up finish to a memorable shot, just like he did at Oakmont when J.J. Spaun holed a 65-foot birdie putt to clinch the U.S. Open. MacIntyre was in the scoring room when he watched Spaun and applauded it. He was alongside Scheffler at the BMW Championship, staring in disbelief but angry at his poor play off the tee that cost him the big lead early. 'When he's pitched that in on 17 and then he's hit the perfect tee shot on 18, it's pretty much game over just then. You're playing for second place at that point,' MacIntyre said. 'He's the better player on the day. I'm just really pissed off right now,' he said. 'Right now I want go and smash up my golf clubs, to be honest with you.' MacIntyre made 18 birdies in the first 45 holes of the tournament and only two over the last 27 holes. He closed with a 73 and got some consolation prizes that didn't mean much in the moment. He cracked the top 10 in the world for the first time, going to No. 8. Scheffler's chip-in elicited the loudest cheer of the day. The most satisfying shot came on the 15th, when his lead was down to one shot after a three-putt. MacIntyre from the fairway hit into 7 feet. Scheffler was in a deep bunker and hit 8-iron to 6 feet. MacIntyre missed. Scheffler made. 'That was a really important shot in the tournament, one that I think will fly a little bit under the radar,' he said. The season is not over for Scheffler, who leads the 30 players who advanced to the Tour Championship at East Lake with a chance to become the first repeat FedEx Cup champion since the series began in 2007. All 30 players at East Lake can win the $10 million first-place check. The field includes Harry Hall, the only player who played his way into the top 30 on Sunday, and even that was tense. Hall made bogey on the par-5 16th — the easiest hole on the course — and then went long and left at the 17th. He also chipped in for birdie and was safe going up the 18th. Rickie Fowler was on the verge of getting back to East Lake only to twice miss the green from the fairway on the back nine, leading to bogey on the 14th and double bogey on the 15th, and knocked him out of the top 30. Fowler finished with a 5-foot par putt — had he missed, Michael Kim would have been in the Tour Championship. Instead, the 30th spot went to Akshay Bhatia, despite making four bogeys on the back nine and feeling as though he had blown it. MacIntyre squandered a big chance, too. He showed plenty of grit on Saturday playing in the final group with Scheffler. But on the opening hole, Scheffler drilled his drive down the middle and hit to 6 feet for birdie, while MacIntyre missed the fairway and a 6-foot par putt. It was an early statement. MacIntyre missed another fairway at the second and made bogey. He went from the fairway to a bunker on the short par-4 fifth, a two-shot swing when the Scotsman failed to get up-and-down for par and Scheffler made birdie. And then Scheffler took the lead with a wedge to 6 feet for birdie on No. 7. It looked like it would be a runaway at that point as Scheffler never seemed to miss — except when he had a chance to extend the lead. He missed birdie chances of 5 feet at No. 8 and 8 feet at No. 10. He botched a simple up-and-down at the 12th and three-putted from 18 feet on the 14th. Each chance kept MacIntyre in the hunt. And then came one chip on the 17th, a knockout punch.
