One of golf’s top young talents has decided to forego playing in college to turn pro. In fact, he’s skipping the the last year-and-a-half of high school.
Blades Brown, the top-ranked player in the Class of 2026, announced Tuesday he’s making the leap from amateur golf in 2025. And the high school junior from Nashville will make his pro debut at the PGA Tour’s American Express in January.
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“This is not a decision that I take lightly, and I have spent the past months weighing all possible options before deciding on what I know is best for me,” Brown said in part of a statement he shared on Instagram. “While I am proud of the accomplishments of my amateur career, I am focused on the future and getting off to a strong start in my professional career.”
Here’s Brown’s entire post on his big decision:
In 2023, a then 16-year-old Brown became the youngest medalist in U.S. Amateur history, breaking a 103-year-old record set by Bobby Jones. In 2024, Browns was medalist at the U.S. Junior, joining only Tiger Woods and Bobby Clampett as players to pull off that double. He is also coming off a year in which he captured three AJGA titles and won the Tennessee State Junior by 12 shots.
Brown’s mom, Rhonda, was a standout basketball player at Vanderbilt before playing in the WNBA and making that league’s first-ever three-pointer.
Akshay Bhatia made a similar decision to Brown when he turned pro at 17 in 2019. Now 22, Bhatia is coming off a PGA Tour season in which he earned a second career win at the Valero Texas Open. According to NBCSports.com, Brown will be represented by Bhatia’s agent, Sportfive’s Tommy Riehle.
Interestingly, last year’s American Experess is where 20-year-old Nick Dunlap became the first amateur winner on the PGA Tour since Phil Mickelson in 1991.
Brown recently failed to make it out of the first stage of Q School. He made his PGA Tour debut (as an amateur) at this year’s Myrtle Beach Classic, finishing T-26.
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This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
