Teenager Blades Brown wins in Mexico to become youngest PGA Tour winner in 95 years

Blades Brown is like several young players who can remember Tiger Woods making big putts and winning big tournaments and inspiring them to play. Only for Brown, it wasn't all that long ago.

Two years after his surprising decision to turn pro while a junior in high school, the 19-year-old Brown became the youngest PGA Tour winner in 95 years when he closed with a 9-under 63 and beat Ben James on the second playoff hole in the World Wide Technology Championship.

“It hasn’t set in just yet, I guess, the magnitude of being a PGA Tour winner,” Brown said. “I just go back to 5-year-old Blades that was watching the TV and watching Tiger Woods and all those great players win major championships, and to think that I’m now in a similar spot with having won a PGA Tour event is mind-blowing.”

Brown is youngest winner since Charles Kocsis won the Michigan Open in 1931 when he was 18, a tournament that was considered a regional event in the early years of the PGA.

James lost a four-shot lead going into the final round at El Cardonal at Diamante and then showed his moxie by smoking a 285-yard shot into 20 feet on the par-5 18th and making eagle to salvage a 70 and force the playoff.

But he missed an 8-foot putt on the second playoff hole, and Brown made his 3-footer.

“Had a feeling that it was going to go in,” James said of his clutch eagle, the only putt he made all day longer than 15 feet. “Hadn’t really made anything all day. Just had a really good line on it and it was a good putt. Played the best I could.”

For a sleepy FedEx Cup Fall event on the southern tip of Baja California, this was pure theater between two players from the next generation. James was the No. 1 player in the PGA Tour University ranking last season. Brown turned pro at 17 and earned his PGA Tour card this year by being among the top 20 in Korn Ferry Tour points.

He made up a seven-shot deficit in the final round and then was tested even more by going through two bags of golf balls on the range waiting to see if the two-shot lead he had over James would hold. Then it was back to the par-5 18th for the playoff.

On the first extra hole, their approach shots were side-by-side, separated by about 3 feet, and both narrowly missed eagle chances. They returned to the 18th tee and their drives were next to each other. Both came up just short of the green.

James nearly holed his pitch and saw it run out 8 feet. Brown, who had a similar pitch in regulation that he hit to 6 feet for a closing birdie, this time came up 3 feet short. James' birdie putt grazed the right edge, and Brown poured in the winner.

“I’m so obsessed with this game. It tests you in so many ways,” Brown said. “I love golf, all the stuff that goes into it and I can’t wait for what’s next.”

With eight players separated by two shots on the back nine, Brown ran off three straight birdies to share the lead and then left the mistakes to everyone else. He hit a superb pitch for birdie on the final hole to post at 23-under 265.

That put him one shot ahead of Michael Kim, who played with the Tennessee teen and made birdie from 12 feet for 64 right before Brown made his putt.

Brown now has a two-year exemption, which puts him in the elite Championship Series when the PGA Tour's new model begins in 2028. The victory also assures Brown of his first major next year at the PGA Championship.

It was another setback for James, who in 13 starts since turning pro has five finishes in the top five, and two runner-up finishes.

Denny McCarthy, winless in nine years in 240 starts on the PGA Tour, made a 30-foot birdie putt on the 13th hole to take the lead. But he hit a pedestrian pitch to the par-5 14th and had to settle for par. With a wedge in hand from the 15th fairway, he came up some 40 feet short and three-putted for a bogey.

McCarthy's tee shot on the 17th was right of the 18th tee box, he put his next shot off a dirt path into a hazard and made double bogey. He shot 69.

___

See AP’s full golf coverage here