PROVO — Kihei Akina’s NCAA championship bid ended Monday, but the BYU freshman star’s golf season is just getting started.
Historical All-American achievement
Akina was named to the NCAA Division I PING All-American first team, the organization announced Wednesday on the Golf Channel. He’s just the 16th first-team All-American in program history, and the first since Peter Kuest in 2020.
Coach praises Akina's consistency
“I think, in all sports, consistency is a true testament to greatness,” said BYU director of golf Todd Miller, the long-time assistant to retiring head coach Bruce Brockbank in a statement. “If you look at Kihei’s season from the outside, it’s easy to recognize that he’s one of the top players in the country. What we get to see as coaches is his ability to manage the course and his game when things aren’t going perfectly.
“That ability usually comes with experience and maturity especially in golf. That is why it is so unique in our sport for a freshman to be named as a first team All-American.”
Freshman among elite players
Akina is the lone freshman on the 10-player list that also includes Big 12 rivals Filip Jakubcik of Arizona and Preston Stout of Oklahoma State, the reigning NCAA individual champion.
Program history and accolades
The former Lone Peak High standout and one of the top youth amateur golfers in the country is already one of 85 All-Americans in the program’s six-decade history. But the honors don’t stop there.
𝟏𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐌 𝐀𝐋𝐋-𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀 pic.twitter.com/k8QwHuqwub
— BYU Men's Golf (@BYUmgolf) June 3, 2026
Top awards and tournament wins
After finishing in the top-10 of the NCAA championships and carding a pair of individual tournament titles in his first season of college golf, Akina was named to the Phil Mickelson Outstanding Freshman Award, given annually to the country’s top-ranked freshman. Posting a scoring average of 69.05, the No. 7-rated college golfer won back-to-back individual tournaments in the R.E. Lamkin and the Bridgestone College Invitationals this past spring.
The win at the Bridgestone marked the lowest 54-hole scoring in the history of the tournament at 21-under 195 (65-67-63) and included an exemption to the Korn Ferry Tour’s Blue Championship scheduled for July 9–12 at TPC Colorado.
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The former Utah Open champion and Big 12 freshman of the year is also scheduled to play for Team USA on July 3-5 at the Arnold Palmer Cup in Ireland, and also has dates tentatively scheduled to play in the British Amateur in England.
Akina will head to Sacramento, California, on Monday for final qualifying for the 126th U.S. Open at Del Paso Country Club — a day commonly referred to as “the longest day in golf” for the grueling, 36-hole marathon played by hundreds of professionals and amateurs simultaneously attempting to qualify for an Open bid.
The teenager with PGA Tour experience will join his older brother Keanu after the former BYU golfer qualified out of Willow Creek Country Club alongside fellow BYU alum Carson Lundell, Utah’s Brandon Robison, former Utah Open champion Dusty Fielding and BYU freshman Jackson Mauss.
2026 NCAA Division I PING All-America First Team
Kihei Akina, BYU
Mahanth Chirravuri, Pepperdine
Ben James, Virginia
Filip Jakubcik, Arizona
William Jennings, Alabama
Jackson Koivun, Auburn
Christiaan Maas, Texas
Will Sides, SMU
Harry Takis, San Diego State
Preston Stout, Oklahoma State
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