First, 14-year-old Miles Russell contended in a Korn Ferry Tour event. Then last week, 16-year-old Kris Kim made the cut at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson.
Now another 16-year-old, Blades Brown a sophomore at Brentwood Academy, near Nashville, Tennessee, not only made the cut this week at the Myrtle Beach Classic, but he might have played his way into contention.
After rallying for a second-round 67 Friday at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club to become the second junior golfer to make a PGA Tour cut in as many weeks, Brown kept his foot on the gas with a bogey-free 66 to shoot up the leaderboard into the top 25.
On Friday evening, Brown said he’d head into the weekend with no expectations. So naturally, when he ended his round in a tie for 10th before the leaders went out, he got asked if that lack of expectations had changed.
“Probably not,” Brown said. “Yes, it would be nice to shoot another five-under or six-under tomorrow. It could happen. But I’m 16 playing in a PGA Tour event, so I’m just stoked to be here.”
The teenager is certainly enjoying himself at the PGA Tour’s debut event in Myrtle Beach. So far this week he’s signed everything from shoes, foreheads and more.
“He took off his hat and was like, ‘Have you ever signed a forehead before?'” Brown said. “I was like, no. I thought he was kidding, but I’ve signed like four shoes, so I’m keeping tally. But everything is awesome.”
His goal this week is to make people who come up to him feel just like how Jordan Spieth made him feel during a practice round at the 2018 Masters.
“Just because I know it’s so little for me to do that to some little kid, but I know to that kid it means the world because that’s what it was like for me,” Brown said. “He bent down, talked to me, asked my name, made me feel like I was his friend. That’s the gift of influence. For him, that was just saying hi to a little kid, but to me, for a person of his caliber and his decoration, it meant the world.”
But what he hasn’t done is secure an autograph from perhaps one of the more famous people in this week’s field: Joel Dahmen.
Brown said he wanted to meet Dahmen after watching him on the past two seasons of Netflix’s “Full Swing.”
“My caddie was like, ‘Bro, you don’t need these guys’ signatures, just have them as friends,'” Brown said. “So that’s kind of the mindset I have going into this week.”
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But Brown hasn’t exactly done much yet to make the connection with Dahmen. In fact — while we don’t think Dahmen would take it personally — he may have done the opposite.
“Shoot, I still haven’t said hi. I stepped in his line on the practice green a few days ago,” Brown said. “But yeah, I’ll say hi to him sometime.”
Minor etiquette mistakes aside, Brown is making himself nearly look like a veteran on Tour, rather than making his debut.
He’s hanging with some of the best players in the world largely on the strength of his putter, gaining more than six strokes on the field on the greens during the second and third rounds. Brown also leads the field in proximity on approaches.
“It’s been so much fun,” the teenager said. “My dad, he’s having a blast just messing around with everybody. But just the environment. After I got acclimated to everything — the only big environment I’ve ever really been around was the U.S. Amateur. There were a lot of people there but nowhere near to how many people are here. But I think this is just perfect for my future just because, like I said, you can’t practice for this.”
