{"id":512062,"date":"2026-03-09T01:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T01:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/512062\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T01:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T01:01:08","slug":"ricky-castillo-wins-puerto-rico-open-for-first-pga-tour-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/512062\/","title":{"rendered":"Ricky Castillo wins Puerto Rico Open for first PGA Tour title"},"content":{"rendered":"

RIO GRANDE, Puerto Rico — Ricky Castillo<\/a> made back-to-back birdies right after 18-year-old Blades Brown<\/a> came undone with one bad hole, closing with a 5-under 67 to win the Puerto Rico Open for his first PGA Tour title.<\/p>\n

Brown, trying to become the youngest PGA Tour winner in 95 years, had a one-shot lead with six holes to play when he went from a bunker to the water and made triple bogey.<\/p>\n

Castillo, playing in the final group behind Brown, holed a 12-foot birdie putt on the 13th, and then hit a beautiful pitch over the mounds to 5 feet for birdie on the par-4 14th.<\/p>\n

Castillo narrowly missed out — by 11 points in the FedEx Cup standings — on getting into the $20 million signature event at Bay Hill this week. He headed to Puerto Rico, played bogey-free in the final round at Grand Reserve and earned his way into his first major championship as a pro.<\/p>\n

Ricky Castillo celebrates his win at the Puerto Rico Open on Sunday, his first on the PGA Tour.\u00a0Jordan Bank\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The victory gets him into the PGA Championship. He already was eligible for The Players Championship next week at the TPC Sawgrass.<\/p>\n

“It’s really cool to put into words to be able to win my first event,” Castillo said. “I felt like I wanted to be in Bay Hill and I decided to just come out here and play this and ended up winning, so it all works out in the end. Yeah, surreal week.”<\/p>\n

He finished at 17-under 271, one shot ahead of Chandler Blanchet<\/a>, who birdied the final hole for 67.<\/p>\n

Brown, who turned pro last year and didn’t graduate high school until January, birdied his last hole for a 69 to finish alone in third, his first top 10 on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

But it was one hole — the 455-yard 13th — that did him in. It was similar to The American Express in January, when Brown played in the final group with Scottie Scheffler<\/a>. He put a tee shot into the water on the fifth hole and made double bogey and was quickly out of reach of golf’s best player.<\/p>\n

This time, he drove into a fairway bunker and his approach to a green with water all the way down the right side drifted well to the right. He took his drop, then got too aggressive with a wedge and the ball trickled over the green. He chipped to 7 feet and missed the putt, taking triple bogey.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

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Brown had a one-shot lead going to the 13th and was four shots behind when he finished the 14th.<\/p>\n

John Daly II, the 22-year-old son of two-time major champion John Daly<\/a>, started three shots behind and shot 34 on the front nine. But he fell back quickly with five bogeys in seven holes to start the back nine and shot 74.<\/p>\n

“I learned that you’ve got to put four rounds together and it’s not easy out here,” Daly said. “But very happy, not mad at all. Just a great day, great week.”<\/p>\n

He heads back to Arkansas with eyes on trying to win an NCAA title.<\/p>\n

Brown earned his spot in the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook with his first top 10. He already had a sponsor exemption into the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIO GRANDE, Puerto Rico — Ricky Castillo made back-to-back birdies right after 18-year-old Blades Brown came undone with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-512062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512062","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=512062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}