Blades Brown couldn’t flip off airplane mode on his cellphone quick sufficient.
Brown, the 17-year-old hotshot who’s making his skilled debut this week at The American Categorical, noticed loads of golf programs on the flight into Palm Springs but additionally an appetizing quantity of pickleball courts. Brown, who comes from a sporting household, guesses he’s about scratch on the hardcourt.
Upon touchdown, Brown fired up his cellphone and instantly texted his mom, Rhonda, who performed within the WNBA and recorded the primary 3-pointer in league historical past: Deliver my pickleball stuff. We’re taking part in this week.
Brown was additionally welcoming all challengers contained in the media heart on the ping-pong desk.
“I’m completely all the way down to play,” Brown stated. “Simply let me know.”
(Wait till he discovers Larry Bohannan of the Desert Solar possesses a depraved serve.)
Brown is about to search out out a number of issues as he embarks on this subsequent chapter, the place he’ll solely want his golf golf equipment, some balls and copious quantities of guts. It’s a excessive dive that Nick Dunlap is aware of nicely. It was one 12 months in the past right here at PGA West that Dunlap grew to become the primary newbie since Phil Mickelson in 1991 to win an official PGA Tour occasion. Days later, Dunlap was foregoing his ultimate two and a half seasons on the College of Alabama and cannonballing proper into the skilled waters, the place expectations one way or the other exceed the purses of the signature occasions for which Dunlap was abruptly certified for.
Dunlap received once more, in July on the Barracuda Championship, however he wasn’t spared the rising pains both – poor finishes, loneliness, and to prime all of it off, a authorized dispute together with his former company, which was settled final October.
“I knew it was going to be a studying curve,” Dunlap stated. “I wasn’t anticipating to come back out and dominate early. You go from faculty golf to taking part in towards the most effective gamers on the earth, that’s an enormous bounce.”
Brown remembers watching Dunlap make historical past – he even recalled Tuesday the size of Dunlap’s successful par save (6 ft).
“It simply gave me a lot inspiration to know that any person else just like my age is ready to try this,” Brown stated. “After which it raises the query, What if I can do this?”
Now, he might.
Brown, a homeschooled, high-school junior from Nashville, Tennessee, was courted by each elite faculty within the nation earlier than ending his recruiting course of a pair months in the past, and he bowed out of junior golf because the AJGA’s top-ranked participant. He’s nonetheless, for at the least another day, No. 74 within the World Beginner Golf Rating, boosted by medalist honors on the 2023 U.S. Beginner and final 12 months’s U.S. Junior Beginner – Brown, Tiger Woods and Bobby Clampett are the one gamers to perform that spectacular USGA double – and T-26 ultimately season’s Myrtle Seashore Traditional, Brown’s solely PGA Tour begin to date.
On the similar time, Brown didn’t dominate his friends, names resembling Miles Russell and Luke Colton, in the identical method that the likes of Akshay Bhatia and Joaquin Niemann – two gamers who bypassed faculty golf for the professionals – did on the junior stage. (Brown truly shares an agent with Bhatia, Sportfive’s Tommy Riehle.)
However there’s no denying Brown is particular, an athletic child with a bounce shot almost nearly as good as his placing stroke. He’s charismatic, fearless and appears to comprehend that this isn’t a dash – as a lot as he most likely needs it was.
“I really feel such as you’re put able out right here the place you need to get higher,” stated Brown, who will probably depend on sponsor exemptions for begins till Q-Faculty this fall. “Taking part in towards individuals resembling Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, I imply, you be taught from the most effective. I really feel like that’s life, you be taught each day. I’m most likely not going to be going to highschool in faculty, however I’m going to be going to highschool on the PGA Tour, in order that sounds fairly good to me.”
There can be many who will count on Brown to observe in Dunlap’s footsteps this week within the desert.
Brown, nonetheless, is grateful for the chance – or as the youngsters say, “Pumped!” – understanding this can be an extended course of, whether or not he goes low these subsequent few days or not. Like every teenager, he needs to have enjoyable, hopefully make a ton of birdies after which construct for the subsequent match.
He simply received’t tolerate shedding to his mother in pickleball.
