After the BYU men’s golf team earned a place in this week’s NCAA Men’s Golf Championships with a fourth-place finish at regionals a week ago, retiring BYU coach Bruce Brockbank and director of golf Todd Miller singled out one golfer in particular as the reason the Cougars advanced.
It wasn’t standout freshman Kihei Akina, the No. 6-ranked college golfer in the country. Nor was it senior Simon Kwon, senior Tyson Shelley or junior Peter Kim, stalwarts who helped the Cougars finish in a tie for 13th place last year.
“I thought at first I just wanted to go out of state, but after going out of state, I just realized that it wasn’t for me. I just thrive better in Utah.”
— BYU freshman Parker Bunn
It was redshirt freshman Parker Bunn, who went into the Athens (Georgia) Regional in a tight race with fellow freshman Jackson Mauss to earn the fifth and final spot on the team. The coaches went with Bunn, a transfer from Oklahoma State, and the former Bonneville High star delivered a 6-under-par score in the 54-hole event and a tie for 10th place.
“Parker Bunn was our MVP,” said Brockbank, who announced last month that he is retiring after 41 years with the program as a player and coach.
“It was an incredible performance by Parker stepping into that fifth spot on our team and really carrying us this week,” said Miller, the son of Johnny Miller and uncle of Kwon, who shrugged off two lackluster rounds at regionals with a closing 5-under 66 to help the Cougars hold off Georgia and College of Charleston for one of the five qualifying berths.
The light went on in Georgia
Bunn said playing well in Georgia was “a great blessing” because he was able to reward the coaches for believing in him although he did not play as much as the others in the regular season.
“It felt really good to just help my team out,” he said. “That’s the most important thing to me. I want to be one of the guys that coaches can always rely on. I was glad that coach Brockbank and coach Miller put their faith in me that week. It turned out really well, and hopefully we’ll do it again this week and make a run for the title.”
Bunn, a two-time Utah Junior Golf Player of the Year, said his work with Bobby Low, BYU’s assistant athletic director for mental performance, prepared him to succeed in Georgia.
“The main thing for me was just to swing freely. I get to a point where, if it’s a big tournament, I tend to try to guide the ball,” he said. “So just stepping up on the tee and having full trust in my abilities and just letting it go was the main thing.
“Our mental coach (stressed) our mental cues and to commit to it and let it go, and so I said that every time before I hit the ball, and I think that really helped me just let go of the outcome of the shot and really just focus on what I’m doing well, and I think that helped very much,” he continued.
Who is Parker Bunn?
While the stories of Kwon, Shelley, Kim and Akina, especially, are well known to fans of golfers born and raised in Utah, Bunn is kind of an unknown, because the 6-foot-5 native of South Ogden headed to national golf powerhouse Oklahoma State after being offered by BYU, Utah, Pepperdine, Georgia Tech, Oregon and others out of high school.
“I thought at first I just wanted to go out of state, but after going out of state, I just realized that it wasn’t for me,” Bunn said Tuesday. “I just thrive better in Utah.”
The Cowboys won the 2025 Men’s Golf National Championship, defeating Virginia 4-1 in the team match-play finals. However, Bunn was stuck behind some of the top golfers in the country and didn’t see his place on the roster improving that much in 2025-26.
So he transferred to BYU.
“Everything at Oklahoma State was really great. I love that program,” he said. “I was super grateful to the coaches for recruiting me there, but at the end of the day, that team is really, really stacked, and with them winning the national championship, I figured it would be hard to make the lineup week in and week out.”
He also said that being that far away from home was difficult.
“I think coming closer to home, and to a place where I grew up with all these guys playing junior golf, it is just more comfortable,” he said. “Overall, BYU is a better fit for me, and what I stand for and believe in. It’s been a blast, but I am still very grateful for my experience at Oklahoma State.”
The Cowboys are ranked No. 5 in the country and placed second at the Marana (Arizona) Regional to earn the right to defend their title. Other favorites are Florida, Texas, Auburn and Virginia.
Can BYU make match play?
A realistic goal for BYU is to make match play for the first time since the match-play format was instituted in 2009, a feat that would be a proper send-off for Brockbank, Miller and several players have said.
A field of 30 teams and six individual qualifiers play 54 holes of stroke play. The top 15 teams then play a final round of stroke play, with the top eight teams advancing to a match-play bracket.
The tournament is at the same venue as last year, the par-72 Omni La Costa Resort & Spa (North Course), which measures 7,500 yards from the back tees.
Kwon, Kim and Shelley are familiar with it from last year, while Bunn played it for the first time Wednesday in a practice round. The Cougars flew to San Diego on Tuesday and played at nearby Del Mar Country Club after arriving in Southern California.
Why is BYU playing alone on Thursday?
For the sixth time since they first had to do it in 2018 in central Oklahoma, BYU golfers will begin play in the NCAAs on Thursday, a day ahead of the other 29 teams in the field. For religious reasons, BYU will not play on Sunday, when the third round is scheduled to be played, so the Cougars will play their “third round” on Thursday, alone, on Thursday afternoon after the other teams play their practice rounds.
After all the teams complete their three rounds Friday, Saturday and Sunday, BYU’s score from Thursday’s round will be added and the top 15 teams will make the cut to play in the fourth round of stroke play on Monday.
The same pin positions and tee boxes used by BYU on Thursday will be used by the other teams on Sunday. The biggest variable — the weather — is obviously out of the control of tournament officials. Everything else is supposed to be the same, except for the fact that BYU golfers play solo, whereas on Sunday the golfers will be paired with golfers from other teams.
Generally, BYU has not played as well on Thursday as it has on Friday and Saturday, but Bunn expressed gratitude to the NCAA for making the religious accommodation, just as Miller and others have in previous years.
“The way we have to look at it is that it is a great opportunity to perform for and represent our school and our church,” Bunn said. “I think it’s a great opportunity to show the golf world what we’re about, that we can stand up for our values. And it is really good of the other coaches as well to allow it and go with it, and we thank the NCAA for giving us the opportunity.”
