{"id":429745,"date":"2026-01-25T22:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T22:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/429745\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T22:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T22:43:08","slug":"with-no-fear-endless-energy-and-infectious-joy-blades-brown-on-doorstep-of-pga-tour-breakthrough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/429745\/","title":{"rendered":"With no fear, endless energy and infectious joy, Blades Brown on doorstep of PGA Tour breakthrough"},"content":{"rendered":"

At some point, every professional golfer loses his or her youthful exuberance, that joie de vivre that makes golf so fun, so easy, but that fades seemingly with each shot. While most guys in this 156-man American Express field are attempting some method or another to rediscover that child-like joy and play like the kid they once knew, Blades Brown doesn\u2019t have to try.<\/p>\n

At 18 years old, Brown strikes the ball without fear. <\/p>\n

The son of an WNBA player, he rolls his rock like he\u2019s putting up jump-shots in an empty gym. <\/p>\n

He walks with a pep in his step and a big smile, playing to the crowd every chance he gets. Blades-mania is infectious!<\/p>\n

But just the thought of battling the best player in the world, Scottie Scheffler, for one\u2019s first PGA Tour victory should be enough to dilate any teen\u2019s pupils. And yet, Brown appears unfazed, even breaking from Saturday\u2019s third round for a quick game of rock, paper, scissors<\/a> with a high-schooler standing along the gallery ropes. Brown, in high school himself until wrapping up English and economics exams earlier this month, finally threw rock after a few draws, defeating his opponent\u2019s scissors, the proceeded to hoop a 25-footer for birdie on the famed par-3 17th hole at PGA West\u2019s Stadium Course. When told his birdie unlocked discounted beers at the nearby Michelob Ultra tent, Brown playfully responded, \u201cNo way? I\u2019ll make sure to go get some bottled water, and I\u2019ll have my bottled water then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown added a 44-foot birdie make at the last<\/a> to cap an unusually gusty day with three straight circles and card a 4-under 68 that puts him on the brink of becoming the second-youngest PGA Tour winner ever. Brown will enter Sunday in the final threesome, tied with Scheffler at 21 under and only a shot back of leader Si Woo Kim.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Tee times, groupings and how to watch the final round of The American Express, across all three course in La Quinta, California.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was surreal,\u201d Brown said of his finishing fireworks, which came a day after he nearly broke 60. \u201cThat\u2019s what you practice for \u2013 late nights that you\u2019re going out to putt and pretending that you have a putt to win the Masters. That right there is what it\u2019s all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy hit dream putts like that decades ago as a kid at Holywood Golf Club in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

For Brown, that was basically just last week.<\/p>\n

After all, Brown is less than two years removed from competing on the AJGA circuit. But with credentials like his, it\u2019s no wonder Brown\u2019s career trajectory has been expedited. In 2023, Brown, at just 16 years old, became the youngest medalist or co-medalist in U.S. Amateur history by two years over Bobby Jones. The following summer, he medaled at the 2024 U.S. Junior, too, to put himself on a list with only Tiger Woods and Bobby Clampett as players to medal in both USGA championships. As the top-ranked recruit in the Class of 2026, he fielded million-dollar offers from several colleges, only to turn pro in time to debut at last year\u2019s American Express. And despite not having any status to begin with, Brown qualified for the Korn Ferry Tour Championship and locked up his KFT card for this season.<\/p>\n

Securing a full-time job was one of Brown\u2019s only goals last year. Another was gleaning something productive, anything, from each round. As Brown reiterated Saturday: \u201cYou just keep stacking those, day after day, it\u2019s going to be a really cool story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like the one developing right now? Brown\u2019s crazy week actually began in the Bahamas. He tied for 19th at the Korn Ferry Tour\u2019s Great Abaco Golf Classic, which wrapped up Wednesday afternoon. By virtue of finishing top 50 in his PGA Tour debut two years ago in Myrtle Beach, Brown received a five-hour credit with OneFlight, a private charter company, which he cashed in to traverse the 2,300 miles between Abaco and Palm Springs and make his Thursday-morning tee time on a sponsor exemption.<\/p>\n

T.J. Vogel did something similar a few years back, only he missed the AmEx cut, so when Brown tees of Sunday afternoon, he\u2019s believed to be the first player in the modern era to log eight Tour-sanctioned rounds in as many days \u2013 not that you could tell. Brown posted just one bogey in challenging conditions on the Stadium, by far the toughest in the AmEx\u2019s three-course rota. He also drained another long putt earlier in his round, from about 25 feet at the par-3 sixth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat to me was a lot of fun,\u201d Brown said afterward. \u201cI love environments like that, especially 17, there\u2019s so many people around, it gets your adrenaline up.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

‘That was a lot of fun’: Blades on strong Round 3 finish<\/p>\n

Blades Brown has made the cut at the 2026 American Express and is set to play his eighth consecutive day of professional golf on Sunday. The 18-year-old’s successful final three holes helped vault him up the leaderboard and left him in contention to be the second-youngest winner in PGA Tour history.<\/p>\n

With energy to spare, Brown, who often plays pickleball and shoots hoops during tournaments weeks, wanted to go out to dinner on Friday night following his second-round 60. Instead, Brown\u2019s instructor, Justin Parsons, talked him into ordering in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI almost ate the whole pizza,\u201d Brown said, unashamed.<\/p>\n

Smartly, he planned to go take a nap after Saturday\u2019s round.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Scheffler, making his first start of the year, tallied six birdies to equal Brown\u2019s 68. He then fielded five questions from reporters Saturday, though he was not asked about the prospects of going up against Brown, who is 11 years younger. Scheffler surely isn\u2019t worried, about Brown or anybody; he\u2019s collected 14 worldwide titles in the past two years, and according to stats guru Justin Ray, he\u2019s won on nine straight occasions in which he entered a final round either a shot back or tied for the lead. <\/p>\n

But Scheffler likely also knows the advantages of playing with that boyhood freedom, and though it\u2019s been 95 years since Charles Kocsis won the Michigan Open at 18 years, 6 months and 9 days old, Brown won\u2019t have to rewind nearly that far, just two years, to see what Nick Dunlap did on this very property as a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of Alabama.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly think that he thinks that he\u2019s ready to win golf tournaments when he tees them up,\u201d Parsons said. \u201cHe\u2019s got a great, positive attitude, a great, positive energy. He loves the challenge. It\u2019s so refreshing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ah, that joy; Blades has it in spades.<\/p>\n

Just don\u2019t mistake him for being completely na\u00efve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I have a long way to go,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThese guys out here have been playing for so many years, and I\u2019m just getting started. But no, I\u2019ve got another shot at it tomorrow, another 18 holes, and we\u2019re going to see what we can do\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be my eighth consecutive round professionally, and that\u2019s what I love. I love to play golf.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At some point, every professional golfer loses his or her youthful exuberance, that joie de vivre that makes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-429745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}