- Kihei Akina, 19, became the youngest Utah Open champion in its 99-year history.
- He shot 4-under-par 68 to win at Riverside Country Club in Provo.
- Akina surpassed former BYU golfer Mike Brannan's age record by about a week.
PROVO — If ever there was a passing of the torch from one BYU all-time great to the next potential Cougar golf star, it could've been Sunday afternoon.
Exactly 50 years to the day after former BYU golfer Mike Brannan became the youngest Utah Open champion in the tournament's 99-year history, Kihei Akina scuttled under his mark by about a week.
It might not be the last time Brannan, a four-time All-American and BYU hall of famer who died in 2013, and Akina are connected in the same sentence.
Akina, the 19-year-old junior golf wunderkind and three-time 6A state medalist at nearby Lone Peak High, shot 4-under-par 68 to hold off a handful of top amateurs, professional golfers, and everything in between to clinch the Larry H. Miller Utah Open at Riverside Country Club.
"This is one of the best state opens there is," Akina said. "It's cool, and I know that there are even a lot of good high school kids right now, as we saw with all the amateurs on the leaderboard."
Akina took a one-shot lead over former BYU golfer Cole Ogden into the final round, and though he didn't match the previous highs of 66 and 65 as the first 36 holes, his 68 was enough to hold off a Sunday charge from former Utah Tech golfer Spencer Wallace, the teaching pro at Teebox in St. George who tied for the low round of the day at 6-under 66 to share low pro honors — and the $20,500 winners' check — with Utah Valley alum and PGA Tour Americas golfer Brady McKinlay.
The duo tied for second with Ogden with a three-day total of 15-under 201, just ahead of Arizona State commit Boston Bracken from Crimson Cliffs High School.
"Spencer played some really good golf this week. I played solid as well," McKinlay said. "It was a good battle.
"Kihei played incredible golf," he added. "He's as steady as anybody, and he made countless putts. … He didn't give anybody anything this week."
Even when Akina stumbled — like back-to-back bogeys on the ninth and 10th holes as he made the turn into the final nine — he caught himself. Consecutive birdies par-4, 458-yard 12th and par-5, 337-yard 15th certainly helped.
But so did a few par-saves like the one on the par-5, 584-yard 15th hole where he managed to keep the scorecard clean despite taking his second penalty stroke on the back nine.
"I knew I was still in it. But I just knew that there were a bunch of birdie holes coming up, with two par-5s and a couple of short par-4s," Akina said. "There was plenty of opportunity to get back in front."
Akina has played in the Utah Open since 2021, and he's played the course that will soon be his home as a member of the BYU men's golf team dozens of times in his junior golf career.
Perhaps that made bouncing back a little easier — and the final number all the more special as he took an ovation as the first amateur to win the Utah Open title since former BYU golfer Patrick Fishburn in 2017.
"I've had past failures and times I came up short. I try to learn from those," Akina said. "In your career, you're going to get so many opportunities to win golf tournaments. Every time you come up short, you just have to take something from it.
"That's what I've done my entire golf career. Luckily, I was able to apply some of those things today from the past."
Akina admits he still has "a long way to go" in his golf career. But an Open championship and title on his collegiate home course two weeks before the semester begins is nothing if not a shot of confidence for the 19 year old.
Just don't expect him to bring the Utah Open trophy to his first practice at Riverside. That's not his style, he said with a smile.
"We're going to have a lot of qualifying rounds here," Akina said. "It's good to know that I can play well here."
99th Larry H. Miller Utah Open
Riverside Country Club, Provo
Top 10
- 199 — Kihei Akina (a)
- 201 — Spencer Wallace, Cole Ogden (a), Brady McKinlay
- 202 — Boston Bracken (a)
- 204 — Martin Leon, Zac Jones, Carson Lundell, Jhared Hack
- 205 — Cole Ponich, Kirby Coe-Kirkham
- Utah Section PGA sidebar — Spencer Wallace
- Low senior — Matt Baird
Full results available at utahpga.com
