CARLSBAD, Calif. – Considering who Preston Stout beat a few weeks ago, battling his peers at the collegiate level has been nothing for the Oklahoma State junior, who has won five times this spring and is leading through three rounds of the NCAA Championship.
Stout was the star of Golf Channel’s recent YouTube collab with Good Good, dubbed the Battle of the Cowboys, which pitted Stout’s 2025 NCAA title-winning Cowboys with the victorious 2018 Oklahoma State squad that put six players on the PGA Tour. Stout’s opponent that mid-April day at Oak Tree National in Edmond, Oklahoma, was Viktor Hovland, a seven-time PGA Tour winner and three-time European Ryder Cupper.
And Stout absolutely dominated Hovland, going 5 up through seven holes on the Norwegian star before closing out his match, 4 and 3.
“That was a lot of fun,” Stout said. “That was cool to kind of kick his ass a little bit. It doesn’t happen often. I feel like it definitely gave me a boost. We were leaving for Big 12s right after that, and I felt like I hadn’t been playing well leading up to that day, and then obviously played really well and was able to beat one of the better players in the world.”
Added Oklahoma State head coach Alan Bratton: “Preston was there to be an ass-kicker and he was. It was very impressive golf to see. Viktor was in contention at Hilton Head right before that, and while he didn’t strike it like he can, but he also didn’t play that bad.”
Stout went from scalping Hovland to winning his third straight Big 12 individual title, his fourth win of the spring and this one by a whopping seven shots, which helped him become a finalist for both the Haskins and Hogan awards, the latter of which went to Auburn’s Jackson Koivun last Monday. Koivun has won six times this spring while fellow Hogan finalist Ben James of Virginia is on track to become just the fifth four-time first-team GCAA All-American in NCAA history.
“I know it’s motivated him to have those guys to chase,” Bratton said. “The years that both of those guys have had are very impressive, but his is as well. Most years, that probably would’ve won an award or two.”
Stout, who opened the NCAA Championship in 1-over 73, has fired 12 under over the last 36 holes. Stout’s third-round 65 tied the program’s second-best score at nationals, behind only Charles Howell’s 63 in 2000. Stout started Sunday with an eagle at the par-5 10th hole, where he hit 3-wood from 260 yards to 12 feet and rolled in the putt. He’s 11 under entering Monday’s final round, after which the winner will also earn a likely invitation into next year’s Masters Tournament.
Arizona’s Filip Jakubcik, Alabama’s William Jennings and Vanderbilt’s Will Hartman are tied for second, a shot behind Stout, while Koivun is five behind.
“Everyone knows what’s a stake,” Stout said. “It definitely feels like a major for us.”