No. 24 BYU men’s golf opens the 2026 Big 12 Match Play against Utah at 8 a.m. Mountain on Monday, Oct. 12, at The Country Club of Salt Lake. There is no announced television stream or radio broadcast. The official Clippd scoreboard is the practical way to follow each individual match and the team result.
This one runs for three days, not three rounds. Pool play begins with two sessions Monday and one Tuesday morning. The four pool winners advance to Tuesday afternoon’s championship bracket, then the title match is Wednesday morning. Every other team keeps playing in placement matches.
BYU enters as the defending champion and the No. 6 seed. That sounds comfortable until the first pairing appears: No. 11 Utah, on Utah’s home course, with five head-to-head points available. The Cougars cannot protect an aggregate score or wait for a low final round. Each golfer has to beat the player walking beside him.
BYU Big 12 Match Play follow information
| Event detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Event | 2026 Big 12 Men’s Golf Match Play |
| Dates | Monday-Wednesday, Oct. 12-14, 2026 |
| Monday | Pool rounds at 8 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. MDT |
| Tuesday | Final pool round at 8 a.m.; bracket/placement round at 1:30 p.m. MDT |
| Wednesday | Final placement matches at 8 a.m. MDT; awards at 1:30 p.m. |
| First match | No. 6 BYU vs. No. 11 Utah, Monday at 8 a.m. MDT |
| Venue | The Country Club of Salt Lake, Salt Lake City, Utah |
| Course setup | Par 72, 7,018 yards |
| Live scoring | Official Clippd scoreboard |
| TV/stream | No official broadcast listing published |
| Radio | No official radio listing published |
| Spectators | Free admission; no spectator golf carts |
| BYU event | Official schedule event 25379 |
| Permanent schedule | BYU men’s golf schedule |
Utah Athletics says parking signs will direct spectators at the course. Fans attending in person should expect to walk and follow normal golf etiquette. Anyone following remotely should keep Clippd open because a team total in match play does not behave like the familiar stroke-play leaderboard.
How the scoring works
BYU has six golfers available and chooses five before each round. Those five play five individual head-to-head matches against the opponent’s five. Winning an individual match earns one point. A match tied after 18 holes gives each team half a point. There are no extra holes.
The team with more points across the five matches wins the round and receives three pool points. A team tie is worth one pool point apiece. A loss is worth zero.
That changes how to read almost every update. A golfer can make triple bogey, lose one hole and still recover fully on the next tee. Another player can shoot a respectable score across 18 holes and never lead his match. The useful display is holes up or down, not strokes under par.
It also makes the fifth match important long before the last green. If BYU leads two matches, trails two and the remaining pairing is all square, that last contest controls the team result. A 4-and-3 win counts exactly the same individual point as a 1-up win. Margin matters only until a match is decided.
Pool C contains No. 3 Arizona State, No. 6 BYU, No. 11 Utah and No. 14 Iowa State. BYU’s official preview confirms Utah as the Monday morning opponent but does not publish the later opponent order. Use the live board rather than assigning those rounds early.
The defending champion has a different card
BYU beat Baylor 4-1 for the 2024 championship. The Big 12 credited Tyson Shelley, Peter Kim, Cole Ponich and Simon Kwon with wins in that final. None of those four appears in the six-player group BYU announced for Salt Lake City.
The defending-champion label belongs to the program. The current lineup still has to build its own match-play receipt.
Kihei Akina, Drake Harvey and Parker Bunn carry BYU’s two fall stroke-play starts into the event. Akina tied for second at the Vuori Invitational and fourth at the William H. Tucker Invitational. He has shot 71 or better in all six college rounds this fall. Harvey supplied the round that changed BYU’s last finish, a career-low 67 that moved him into a tie for 15th and helped the Cougars hold third place by one shot over UNLV. Bunn counted in every round at the Tucker.
The other half of the group is new to BYU’s team card this season. David Liechty, Cooper Jones and Lincoln Markham competed as individuals earlier in the fall, and BYU says all three will make their team debuts in this event. Five of the six play each round, so coach Todd Miller has one decision before every match and the freedom to change the five between sessions.
That choice is more than a reward for the lowest prior total. Match play asks who can keep a hole alive after a poor shot, who makes enough birdies to force an answer and who can close a match when dormie. Stroke-play averages give clues. They do not settle those questions.
Four things to follow against Utah and beyond
1. Which five get the first rivalry card?
Akina is the obvious lead name. Harvey just produced BYU’s lowest round at the Tucker, and Bunn has been the steady counter. That leaves three debuting options for two places if those first three hold.
Jones returned from missionary service at the Vuori and finished as BYU’s second-best individual at 3 over. Markham’s college debut at the Tucker included a final-round 69. Liechty also closed the Tucker with a 69 after opening 79-76. Each has shown one useful piece, but none has yet carried a score that counted toward BYU’s team total this fall.
The first five will tell us what the coaches value for a rivalry opener. The player held out is just as informative because he can return for the afternoon round.
2. Can Akina turn low scores into won holes?
Akina has been BYU’s best stroke-play golfer this fall, then finished ninth at 20 under in the PGA Tour’s Bank of Utah Championship last weekend. Match play strips away most of that résumé once the pairing begins.
His advantage is pressure. Six college rounds of 71 or better suggest he can keep putting a number in front of an opponent. His PGA Tour finish shows the ceiling extends beyond the college fields BYU has faced. Still, an opponent can erase a lost hole with one birdie. Akina’s job is to keep creating those decisions instead of assuming a low total will eventually separate him.
3. Does Harvey’s repair skill carry over?
Harvey has already answered difficult rounds twice. At Vuori, his opening 74 did not count, then his second-round 72 did. At the Tucker, he followed a 75 with the closing 67 that BYU needed.
That response is useful in match play because one bad hole does not poison the card. The challenge comes faster. There is no overnight reset and no second-round aggregate to repair. Harvey may need to lose a hole, walk 100 yards and win the next one.
4. Does home-course familiarity tilt the opener?
Utah practices at The Country Club of Salt Lake. The Utes also arrive with Gabriel Palacios coming off an individual win at the Hamptons Intercollegiate. That is a real edge in familiarity, not a guarantee.
BYU’s answer is that match play reduces the value of one strange bounce or one difficult hole. A local player may know where to miss, but the visitor loses only one point on the scorecard if the hole goes wrong. The bigger danger is allowing a poor start to spread across several pairings while Utah is comfortable with the sight lines and green speeds.
Watch the first five or six holes across all matches. BYU does not need five early leads. It does need enough blue on the board to keep Utah from turning familiarity into a wave.
The path back to the title is short and unforgiving
Four teams sit in BYU’s pool, and only one advances to the championship bracket. That means the rivalry opener matters beyond the rivalry. Three pool rounds leave little room to hand away a team result and expect help later.
Arizona State is the No. 3 seed and the highest-ranked team in Pool C. Iowa State is No. 14. Seeding sets the starting shape, not the result. Every round still contains five direct matches and the same three available team points.
BYU won this event the last time it was held, then watched it disappear from the 2025 schedule. Two years later, the trophy defense starts with a new group on Utah’s home course. That is enough history to make Monday interesting. It is not enough to win a single hole.
Open Clippd before 8 a.m. Mountain. Check which five Cougars start, then read the board by individual matches rather than total strokes. If the team result is still alive late, find the pairing closest to all square. That match, not necessarily Akina’s, may decide whether BYU begins its title defense with three pool points.
After the event, use the men’s golf results page for the official finish. BYU next plays The Preserve Golf Club Collegiate in Carmel, California, on Oct. 26-28.
Sources and further reading
- BYU Athletics, Oct. 10: No. 24 men’s golf to compete in Big 12 Match Play for BYU’s six-player group, seed, pool, Utah opener, defending-champion status and official live-scoring link.
- BYU Athletics: official schedule event 25379 for the stable event ID, scheduled status, UTC window and Salt Lake City venue.
- Big 12 Conference, Oct. 9: Big 12 Men’s Golf Match Play opens Monday for the five-match scoring system, team pool points, pool assignments and session schedule.
- Clippd: 2026 Big 12 Match Play for the official participant and live-results destination.
- Utah Athletics, Oct. 10: Utah welcomes Big 12 Match Play for the par-72, 7,018-yard setup, session times, spectator access and host-course context.
- Big 12 Conference, Oct. 9, 2024: BYU wins Big 12 Men’s Golf Match Play for the 4-1 championship result and BYU’s individual winners in the final.
- BYU Athletics, Sept. 26: BYU takes third at the Tucker Invitational for Akina’s finish, Harvey’s 67, Bunn’s counting rounds and BYU’s complete scorecard.
- BYU Athletics, Oct. 5: Akina finishes ninth at the Bank of Utah Championship for Akina’s PGA Tour finish immediately before match play.
- BYU Sport Nuts: Tucker recap, Cooper Jones return analysis, men’s golf hub, roster and all-sports directory.
