Rising Teen Golf Star: Private Flights and Tour Leadership

Welcome! Where are you, you ask. I’m calling this the Weekend 9. Think of it as a spot to warm up for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We’ll have thoughts. We’ll have tips. We’ll have tweets. But just nine in all, though sometimes maybe more and sometimes maybe less. As for who I am? The paragraphs below tell some of the story. I can be reached at [email protected].

If you’re reading this report, you’re probably being encircled by snow, or the cold, or by pics from your pals in much calmer climates, so let’s start with something warm and bright, such as this:

“Yeah, I love what I do. I love to play golf.”

That’s good. That was from Blades Brown, who’s now three-fourths of the way through a  maybe-never-been-done-before playing attempt — and halfway home to something even more incredible. Here are your facts: On Sunday, he teed off at the the Bahamas Great Abaco Classic on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he’s a member, then he played Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday — before heading to the PGA Tour’s American Express, a tournament that runs Thursday through Sunday and invited Brown to play on a sponsor exemption. Add that all up, and you get this:

Brown could play eight consecutive days of PGA Tour-level golf, and as far as anyone can tell, he’d be the first to do so.

Which, come Sunday night, might be just a cute trivia answer, because dude might win the thing. Please stay with us here.

The story starts 18 years ago, which is also when Brown did. Eighteen is Brown age, making him one of professional golf’s youngest players — and there was natural curiosity when, a year ago, he started his pro career at the American Express on a sponsor exemption. How would the then-17-year-old play? How would he look away from the play? The first sentence of a story from Larry Bohannan, a writer from the nearby Palm Springs Desert Sun, summed it up this way:

For three days, Blades Brown was the story of The American Express, with the 17-year-old making birdies and thrilling galleries in his professional debut.

Brown was personable. Ahead of the AmEx, he talked about dad and mom, who played in the WNBA and hit the league’s first 3-pointer. He talked about wanting to dunk. Brown then opened with a 72, then shot a 64, which, according to GOLF.com contributor Justin Ray, was the lowest score in a PGA Tour round by a player under the age of 18 in the last 40 years. On his third day at the American Express — the event plays three rounds — Brown stumbled to a 74 and he missed the cut, but he hung around for interviews, including the one below, which was shown live on Golf Channel:

After all that, the folks at American Express invited him back. And the eight-day plan became a possibility. Brown earned the Korn Ferry spot through his full-time status on the tour (gained by finishing in the top 75 last year on the circuit’s season-long points standings). He also picked up a ride between the Bahamas and the West Coast. Last May, he played in the PGA Tour’s Myrtle Beach Classic, where he was given five hours of flight time by event sponsor and private jet company ONEFlight by finishing in the top 50 — and he’s cashed it in. His schedule between the tournaments looked like this:

– Finished the final round at the Abaco Club on Wednesday afternoon

– Showered

– Drove from the course to Thompson International Airport in the Bahamas, where the private jet took off at 4 p.m. Eastern (“It was awesome,” Brown said Thursday. “My second time ever flying private. It was beautiful.”)

– Landed at 6:30 p.m. Pacific at Palm Springs International Airport

– Ate Panda Express

– Bought some groceries

– Went to sleep at 10

– Woke up at 5 on Thursday

– Got out to PGA West to warm up and roll some putts. (“I mean, it was blowing 30 the entire way,” Brown said, ”and then you get here and then it’s perfect.”)

But could he, you know, play eight straight days? He’d have to make a pair of cuts, too — and he most certainly will, barring the unforeseen, after a Friday at the AmEx few saw coming.

Brown birdied his first hole (the 10th at the Nicklaus Tournament Course). And eagled the second. And birdied the third. And the fourth. And the fifth. And the sixth. And the seventh. He was eight-under — through seven. After a pair of pars, he finished his first nine with a 28. Folks start whispering then. And Brown kept balling. He birdied his 11th hole. And 13th. And 14th. And 15th. He was 12-under on the par-72 — with three holes left to shoot 59. Or 58. Or 57.

Or 60.

Brown parred out. On 18, after a wedge that dropped to within a few feet of the hole, his birdie attempt slid past its right side. “I was thinking, OK, maybe just a little outside right edge,” he said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t break.” Still, a 60 is a 60. That tied for the day’s best score.

And, through two rounds, Brown is tied for the lead with someone who’s seemingly always around the top: world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. Much can happen from here to Sunday, of course, then again, much already has, and here Brown is. Should he win, he’d be the second-youngest ever to do so on the PGA Tour, according to the PGA Tour record books. (The youngest was Charles Kocsis, who, at 18 years, 6 months, 9 days, won the 1931 Michigan Open; Brown turns 19 in May.)

But again, that’s getting ahead of things.

And Friday night, Brown was thinking of other things.

“I’m going to go take a nap after this,” he said, “and probably get some food.”

Let’s see if we can find eight more items for the Weekend 9.

2. The PGA Tour social media team captured Brown’s trip from the Bahamas to California, and you can watch it below.

The rep he was earning “was impossible to ignore,” he says. Doubts crept in during the tensest moments, an affliction that never plagues the player in 40th place. But rather than coalesce into some unbeatable boogeyman, the close calls somehow reduced Fleetwood’s fear of falling short — so long as he forced himself through a sick form of therapy. When it would have been natural to retreat and discreetly lick his wounds, he went straight to the media and rewired his perception of those negative experiences.

“If you’re gonna take the highs, you have to take the hits as well,” he says now. “I’m talking to myself when I’m doing those interviews. I knew that if I spoke straight away and said the right things — the things I wanna hear as well — that it was a really important part of the process for me.”

Fleetwood’s fearless vulnerability struck such a chord with PGA Tour staffers that, at their annual orientation for rookie players in November, they used his post-Travelers presser as a peak example of media relations. If some of Fleetwood’s maxims — “Thoughts and feelings are the most natural things we have; you can’t fight them” — seem straight out of a self-help manual, they very well might be. He works with sports psychologist Bob Rotella and rereads his books often.

Again, here is the story link, and here is the video link.

Another instruction tip for the weekend

8. With snow storms approaching parts of the country, I thought that the tweet below was worth sharing.

A golf story that interests me

9. This story here is good. Written by Bill Smith of techblog.com, it describes a mini-golf putter that straightens the face as you putt, should you need it.

Wrote Smith:

He wanted a putter that’d give him a break from those frustrating times when he just can’t quite put the ball in the hole despite his best efforts. From the surface, it appears to be a standard-looking club with a machined head and a lengthy shaft, but within it houses a beast of a high-torque brushless motor coupled via a driving shaft to a worm gearbox that allows it to rotate the head around a vertical axis. This configuration maintains the head steady at impact while allowing for extremely quick modifications mid-swing.

What golf is on TV this weekend?

10. Let’s do 10 items! Here’s a rundown of golf on TV this weekend:

– Saturday

2 a.m.-8 a.m. ET: Hero Dubai Desert Classic third round, Golf Channel

4 p.m.-7 p.m. ET: The American Express third round, Golf Channel

7 p.m.-10 p.m. ET: Mitsubishi Electric Championship final round, Golf Channel

– Sunday

2 a.m.-8 a.m. ET: Hero Dubai Desert Classic final round, Golf Channel

4 p.m.-7 p.m. ET: The American Express final round, Golf Channel

A video that made me laugh

11. Let’s do 11 items! The video below, from Bridgestone Golf, was good.