The young American golfer Blades Brown, who will turn 19 next May, is playing this week at the Valspar Championship. It’s no surprise, as this will be the thirteenth PGA Tour event he has played, and despite his tender years he has already been a professional for a year. The novelty of his presence is that it will be the first time Brown has not received an invitation…
Blades Brown, whose best amateur world ranking was 71st, nothing particularly remarkable, made a meteoric leap in fame and prestige when in 2023, at 16, he finished first (tied with two other players) in the stroke play stage of the US Amateur, breaking a 103‑year‑old record held by Bobby Jones, who had done the same at 18 in 1920. Afterwards, Brown lost in the second round of the match play stage to another of the great young American talents, Jackson Koivun, who is now 20, but the sensation had already been created.
In 2024, still an amateur and just days before his 17th birthday, he made his debut with an invitation to a PGA Tour event and surprised everyone with an excellent 26th place. The story continued and the youngster, now a professional, kept receiving invitations, to the point of playing eight PGA Tour events in 2025 (he was 34th at the Mexico Open and at the Butterfield Bermuda). In 2026 he again made headlines, getting into the Sunday feature group at the American Express alongside Si Woo Kim and Scottie Scheffler, no less, although he fell to 18th on the leaderboard that day after shooting a 74 in the final round.
Finally, two weeks ago he finished third in Puerto Rico, starting in the penultimate Sunday group, and thanks to this top ten he secured a place in the Valspar, where he will try to keep adding points on the non-member PGA Tour points list, which he currently leads with 149 points. His objective in this parallel ranking is, of course, to accumulate by season’s end at least the same number of points as the 100th player in the FedEx Cup to thereby earn playing rights on the PGA Tour. Right now, with those 149 points he would hypothetically be 65th in the FedEx Cup, so he’s not far off.
While the next big shock in the top tier may or may not arrive, Brown can also benefit from the more usual route, since he holds playing rights on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he currently sits 73rd in the rankings after playing four events. Curiously, he has better results this year on the PGA Tour, where he already has the aforementioned third place in Puerto Rico, than in the second division, where his best result this season has been a 17th at The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic, held last January.
