Blades Brown said the best himself, in the immediate seconds after the World Championship of Technology.
“I got it this time,” Brown said, “but I’m sure we’ll be fighting for years to come.”
Emphasis on these last words. Years to come.
It’s oh, so easy to over-index on the recent bias, but that was what Sunday came down to on the PGA Tour, a fall event punctuated by newcomers that the PGA Tour could. always use more. In this case, it was led by Brown, the rising 19-year-old who seemed long destined to create the exact moment he created on Sunday: an aggressive 63 to run in the standings.
He found himself on the driving field, staying hot as his youth partner Ben James (half a generation older at 23 years) made the last to make a playoff. James, unlike Brown, worked in the pros through college and held the lead all weekend. Its form throughout the summer and autumn he was so analytically good that he entered the week as one of the betting favorites. The numbers don’t lie!
Both calmly birdied the par-5 18th and Brown birdied again to win on the second playoff hole. It all seemed a little too easy, and in some ways was easier than winning a PGA Tour event in, say, mid-May.
But there is only so much young people can do but show up and show. As well as Jackson Koivun he did this summer, winning his fourth tournament after turning pro. James will be one of the betting favorites again next week, partly because of what he did this week. It seems only a matter of time. Koivun finished T21 in another quality start. Between him and the top of the ranking was another, 24-year-old David Ford, fifth only, back in his game after a six-month injury.
Compared to everyone, Brown is a child. He is only the second teenager to win on Tour in the last 80 years, and the youngest to do so since 1931. You know, three years before the Masters Tournament existed.
That’s what Brown remembered repeatedly once he won on Sunday, only the ultimate “youngest ever” trophy. it’s full But it is easy to forget that he has been a working professional for almost two years, only that has made him more in tune with life as a professional than any of them. You see it in his answers to the press conference – how he takes the achievements in stride, but doesn’t stop for long. As he said on Sunday night,
“It is not completely established that I am now a winner of the PGA Tour. I will say, however, tomorrow I will wake up and I will be the same person. Next week, on the teeing in Austin, I will be the same person. I will still go to choose the same objectives, wear the same clothes, but eat the same special food to be PGA, now it is a winner of the PGA.