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Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News
BYU’s run in the 2026 NCAA Men’s Golf Championships came to an end Sunday even though the Cougars never picked up a club that day at La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California.
After BYU’s score of 1-under 287 from Thursday’s “third round” was added to the official leaderboard on Sunday and after the other 29 teams in the field had finished their third rounds, the Cougars were on the outside looking in at +9, five shots away from making the cut.
Only the top 15 teams survive the cut and advance to Monday’s fourth and final round, so BYU’s tournament concluded after the Cougars entered on the strength of a fourth-place finish in the Athens Regional.
Last year, BYU made the cut at nationals and then finished in a tie for 13th.
So the Cougars came up short of advancing to the match play portion of the event for the second straight year. That’s a bit of a shame, because this week’s tournament was the last for popular head coach Bruce Brockbank, who is retiring after 41 years of involvement in the program as a player and a coach.
Also Sunday, when star freshman Kihei Akina’s score of 1-under 71 from Thursday was officially added to the player leaderboard, the Lone Peak High product stood in a tie for seventh place with the No. 1-ranked college golfer in the country, Auburn’s Jackson Koivun.
Akina did his part to help the Cougars advance, posting a score of 6-under (-6) through 54 holes, but his teammates were hot and cold and could never quite put it together in all three rounds like the freshman, who is ranked No. 8 in the country.
BYU’s undoing, as it were, was the 8-over round it fired on Friday. The Cougars shot 1-under on Thursday and 2-over on Saturday for their 54-hole total of +9.
Auburn, which is ranked No. 1 in the country, stands in first place at 22-under heading into the fourth round. No. 3 Texas is in second place at 19-under, followed by No. 11 Vanderbilt all the way down at 9-under.
Arizona, Oklahoma State and UCLA are tied for fourth at 8-under to round out the top five.
Arizona State, which features Utahns Boston Bracken and Jackson Mauss, also did not make the cut.