Oh, to be young again.
The armor of youth is naivete that feels like invincibility — the sense that anything that can go right will go right. The scar tissue that builds up as you collect life’s wounds hasn’t yet arrived. You can do anything and be anything because nothing has told you that you can’t.
In came Rickie Fowler on Friday at the American Express talking about 18-year-old Blades Brown, who came inches away from a second-round 59, and thinking about how things are for Blades Brown and how they were for Rickie Fowler — before the major misses and winless droughts, before what could be became what is and was.
“Yeah, soak it up, have fun,” Fowler said of Brown. “It goes by pretty quickly.”
Brown, who finished high school two weeks ago and is a Korn Ferry Tour member, started his week in the Bahamas playing a Sunday-Wednesday event. He then hopped on a private plane and jetted to the Southern California desert to play as a sponsor invite. A year ago, Brown missed the cut at the American Express in heartbreaking fashion. This time, he played himself in contention and set up a final-round tee time with World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and Si Woo Kim.
“I’m having fun out there. I’m 18 years old playing on the PGA Tour. How awesome is that?” Brown said on Saturday.
He arrived Sunday at PGA West with a legitimate change to become the second-youngest winner in PGA Tour history. Still, he’d have to beat Scheffler, Kim and a pack of challengers that included Wyndham Clark, Jason Day and Fowler, all while playing his eighth competitive round in eight days.
Brown birdied the second, but things quickly came unraveled at the par-5 fifth. His tee shot landed in the water, and his re-tee found the right rough. After his 32-foot putt for bogey slid by the hole, Brown tapped in for a double-bogey seven and watched as Scheffler pulled away from the field to waltz to a four-shot win.
Brown’s Sunday scorecard will tell you he played the final round in two over and finished in a tie for 18th, eight shots behind Scheffler. That’s the surface-level view of an 18-year-old’s bout with a growing legend.
But the truth is something deeper. Brown lost the American Express, yes, but it didn’t feel like it.
“Getting to play with Scottie Scheffler in the final group at 18 years old is — I had to pinch myself couple of times just to make sure this was real,” Brown said.
“I would say one of the coolest things that I learned today was how underrated Scottie Scheffler’s short game is. To see it in person and just to look at kind of the trajectory and the spin, and just the control that he has with his wedges and short game. Obviously, his putting is insane, too. It was really cool to watch. So I’m definitely going to go work on that.”
Blades Brown’s foray into the PGA Tour’s Sunday cauldron could be a scar, the first crack in the armor of youth. Or it might be something else. Something valuable as Brown continues on his unconventional path to the PGA Tour.
“I could probably write a book about what I’ve learned these past couple of days,” Brown said, laughing. “Just knowing that I can compete out here. It was so cool watching Scottie win in person and getting to play with him.
“I was having a lot of fun. You’re telling me I get to play in a PGA Tour event and to play with Scottie Scheffler and see him win it, that was insane.”
Blades Brown chose a different path. He opted not to pursue college golf and instead turned professional. He elected to blaze his own trail, believing he was ready for the ups and downs, twists and turns of professional golf. He believed that what others saw as the irrational confidence of youth was instead the opposite. Brown chose his road not because he believed he already had all the tools, but because he identified the professional route as the one that would give him everything he needed to reach his desired destination.
“I think a really really big pillar for me was that I was gonna get better [by going pro],” Brown told GOLF’s Subpar last year. “Like I was gonna get better in college, but I know that I’m gonna get better playing against the best in the world.”
There’s no one better than Scottie Scheffler, and in 18 holes on Sunday, Brown got exactly what he wanted.
Next comes the hard part. Putting the lessons learned from a walk with Scheffler into action.
“Everyone’s got their own path,” Brown said Sunday. “I’m running my race.”
