Nashville’s Blades Brown shares record with Tiger Woods after US Junior Amateur golf performance
Nashville’s Blades Brown now shares a record with Tiger Woods.
Brown, 16, fired rounds of 66-68 (134) to finish first in the U.S. Junior Amateur golf stroke play portion Tuesday at Oakland Hills Country Club in Detroit. The Tennessean’s 2024 boys athlete of the year joins Woods and Bobby Clampett as the only players to secure medalist honors in both the U.S. Junior Amateur and U.S. Amateur, which are the top amateur tournaments offered by the USGA.
Brown, a high school junior and the No. 2 ranked player in the class of 2026, was the co-medalist at the 2023 U.S. Amateur at Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver after tying the course record with an 8-under 64. He was eliminated later in the match play portion in the Round of 32.
Woods, whose play redefined golf in the late 1990s and early 2000s, won three consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur titles from 1991-93 and three straight U.S. Amateur titles from 1994-96 before capturing 15 major championships as a professional.
Woods and Brown posed for a photo together after Tuesday’s round. Woods attended the tournament to watch his 15-year-old son, Charlie, compete. Charlie Woods shot rounds of 80-82 to miss the cut.
The 64 players who made the U.S. Junior Amateur cut will compete in match play Wednesday through Friday. The 36-hole championship match semifinals and finals on Saturday can be streamed on Peacock.
Tuesday was the latest achievement in what’s been a wild year for Brown. His performance at the 2023 U.S. Amateur helped earn him a sponsorship deal with Callaway. He made his PGA Tour debut at the Myrtle Beach Classic on a sponsor exemption in May and finished the tournament at 10-under-par 274, tying for 26th place overall.
More: How did 16-year-old Brentwood Academy star Blades Brown finish in PGA Tour debut?
Brown and Dickson County grad Jackson Herrington, an incoming freshman golfer at Tennessee, placed second in the U.S. Four Ball competition at Philadelphia Cricket Club in Flourtown, Pennsylvania, in May.
Brown won three consecutive Division II-AA TSSAA golf state championships from 2021-23 as a student at Brentwood Academy. He is no longer enrolled at the school and will take online courses this fall.
More: How 16-year-old phenom Blades Brown may be among best golfers in Tennessee history
He is currently No. 8 in the AJGA Rolex rankings and has four top-5 finishes in nine AJGA starts this year.
Reach sports writer Tyler Palmateer at tpalmateer@tennessean.com and on the X platform, formerly Twitter, @tpalmateer83.
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