Playing to win proves to be stout strategy for NCAA champion Preston Stout at John Deere Classic

SILVIS, Ill. — On Wednesday, this year’s NCAA champion Preston Stout announced his intention to play the John Deere Classic with a different mindset than he had in his two previous PGA TOUR amateur starts this year.

“Yeah, my goal is to win this week,” said the 21-year-old rising Oklahoma State senior, who failed to advance to the weekend at the U.S. Open two weeks ago as well as at THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson in May. “My first two events, my goal, it was my goal to make the cut and I was always around the cutline. I talked to my team a lot about it. Going forward, I need to have the same mentality I do when I tee it up for college events. So I believe I can win, and I believe I have the game to do that.”

Presto chango.

Starting Thursday morning on TPC Deere Run's back nine, Stout nabbed a pair of early birdies at Nos. 11 and 13, then ran off four straight birdies at 17, 18, 1 and 2 to find himself 6-under for the round and close by the lead.

He parred his way home after a wayward drive into a fairway bunker at the fourth led to his lone bogey, and he found himself three shots back of leaders Lucas Glover and Zac Blair at the conclusion of the morning draw. Stout’s round of 66 bested his previous PGA TOUR low round of 68 a year ago at the 3M Open, where he also failed to make the weekend.

Stout arrived in the Quad Cities well aware of the Deere Run success of amateur compatriots like Jackson Koivun, who posted T11 at last year’s John Deere, and Luke Clanton, whose runner-up finish in 2024 was one of the two seconds and four top 10s he scored as an amateur between his sophomore and junior seasons at Florida State.

“I think it’s kind of well known that young guys have played well here,” Stout said Wednesday. “I guess that gives me a little bit of confidence.”

That confidence carried over to Thursday.

“It was a good day,” he said of an opening round that saw him lead the morning field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and finish T8 with his total of six birdies. “I was trying to just play my best to give me a chance on Sunday. And that's how I play when we play these college tournaments. So I thought, ‘Why would I not play the same kind of way out here?’ It's still a golf course, it's still just a tournament. The ball doesn't know how old I am.”

Interestingly, Stout is actually a couple of years older than his playing partner, Blades Brown, the 19-year-old, second-year professional who has a pair of top 10 finishes on TOUR this year. Brown finished 2 under in his TPC Deere Run debut Thursday, while Koivun struggled to 2 over while making his maiden start as a pro while playing in a marquee morning pairing alongside Jordan Spieth and Ben Griffin.

Like Clanton and others before him, Koivun, the former top-ranked amateur and 2025 NCAA champion, discovered playing for pay changes things just a bit.

“I didn’t really expect to feel that nervous off the first, but I definitely felt it,” Koivun said after finishing with back-to-back bogeys at Nos. 8 and 9 in the course of a five-bogey, three-birdie opener. “I was just off today. Not every round you play is going to be perfect, but there’s no reason I can’t go out there firing tomorrow.”

With his new mindset, Stout is planning to do likewise as he plays to win against a field with eight players in the OWGR top 50 and another 23 in the top 100.

“Yeah, I really just tried to free myself up this week and kind of realize that I'm living out my dream,” he said. “So just go out and play golf and have fun. It's a game at the end of the day. So yeah, I was just really just trying to have fun and just compete as hard as I can.”

Top amateur finishes at John Deere Classic