Four Tigers named preseason All-Americans by the Network
Less than a week away from the start of the 2024-25 season, the Auburn men’s golf team was ranked preseason No. 1 by the Golf Channel. The network ranked Auburn, the 2023-24 NCAA national champions, ahead of Florida State (2), Oklahoma (3), Texas Tech (4), and Virginia (5).
Four Auburn golfers – Carson Bacha, Josiah Gilbert, Jackson Koivun and Brendan Valdes – were named preseason All-Americans. Koivun and Valdes were named to the first team, while Bacha and Gilbert were named to the third team.
Photo by Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers
Last year, the Tigers pieced together one of the greatest runs in the history of the college golf, racking up 10 team wins en route to the program’s first NCAA Championship. Auburn also won its fifth SEC title and third NCAA Regional title in program history. Head coach Nick Clinard was named the Dave Williams DI National Coach of the Year, and assistant coach Chris Williams won the Jan Strickland Outstanding Assistant Coach Award.
Koivun and Valdes led the squad as GCAA First Team All-Americans and were named First Team All-SEC. Koivun, a Chapel Hill, North Carolina, native, exploded onto the collegiate with an unprecedented season as an individual player, winning SEC Freshman of the Year, SEC Player of the Year, the Phil Mickelson Outstanding Freshman Award, the Ben Hogan Award, the Jack Nicklaus Award and the Fred Haskins Award.
Bacha and Gilbert were also instrumental to the team’s postseason push, combining for six match wins at the SEC and NCAA Championships. Gilbert was named to the SEC All-Freshman Team.
Auburn kickstarts its title defense Monday, Sept. 9 at the Inverness Intercollegiate in Toledo, Ohio. TG