This guy? He’s professional, he flies privately and leads the Tour

Welcome! Where are you, he asks. I call this the 9th weekend. Think of it as a warm-up for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We will have thoughts. We will have some tips. We will have tweets. But only nine in all, though sometimes perhaps more and sometimes perhaps less. Who am I? The sections below tell some of the story. I can be reached at nick.piastowski@golf.com.

If you are reading this report, you are probably surrounded by snow, or cold, or pictures from your friends in a cold place, so let’s start with something warm and bright, like this:

“Yes, I love what I do. I love to play golf.”

That’s good. That was from Blades Brown, who is now three-quarters of the way through a possibly-never-been-done-before-play effort – and on the way to something even more amazing. Here are your facts: On Sunday, he played in the Bahamas Great Abaco Classic on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he is a member, and then played on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday – before heading to the American Express PGA Tour, a tournament that runs from Thursday to Sunday and invited Brown to play with sponsors. Add that all up, and you get this:

Brown can play eight in a row days of PGA Tour-level golf, and as far as anyone knows, he’ll be the first to do so.

Which is, come Sunday night, it might just be a fun answer, because the dude might overcome thing. Please stay with us here.

The story begins 18 years ago, which is when Brown acted. Brown is 18 years old, making him one of the youngest paid golfers – and there was natural curiosity when, last year, he began his professional career at American Express without sponsorship. How would a 17-year-old at that time play? How could he look away from the game? The first sentence of a story from Larry Bohannan, a local writer Palm Springs Desert Sunsum it up like this:

For three days, Blades Brown was the story of The American Express, at the age of 17 he made bird galleries and fun galleries in his professional debut.

Brown had a personality. Before AmEx, she talked about her father and mother, who played in the WNBA and hit the league’s first three-pointer. He talked about wanting food. Brown opened with a 72, then shot a 64, which, according to GOLF.com contributor Justin Ray, was the lowest score in a PGA Tour round by a player under the age of 18 in 40 years. On his third day at the American Express – the event is played over three rounds – Brown stumbled to a 74 and missed the cut, but he waited for interviews, including the one below, which aired live on the Golf Channel:

After all that, the people at American Express invited him back. And the eight-day program became a possibility. Brown earned the Korn Ferry spot by becoming his full-time position on the tour (which he earned by finishing 75th last year in the season circuit points standings). He also drove between the Bahamas and the West Coast. Last May, he played in the PGA Tour’s Myrtle Beach Classic, where he was awarded five hours of flight time by event sponsor and private airline ONEFlight for finishing in the top 50 — and cashed it out. His schedule between tournaments looked like this:

– Finished the final round at the Abaco Club on Wednesday afternoon

– Shower

– I traveled from the course to Thompson International Airport in the Bahamas, where a private plane takes off at 4 p.m. Eastern (“It was great,” Brown said Thursday. “My second time flying privately. It was great.”)

– Arrived at 6:30 pm Pacific at Palm Springs International Airport

– He ate Panda Express

– You bought groceries

– He went to bed at 10

– He woke up at 5 on Thursday

– Head out to PGA West to warm up and roll some putts. (“I mean, it was blowing 30 the whole way,” Brown said, “and then you get here and it’s great.”)

But can he play for eight straight days? He’ll have to cut it in half, too — and he certainly will, barring the unexpected, after a Friday at AmEx that few saw coming.

Brown birdied his first hole (10th on the Nicklaus Tournament Course). And the second eagle. And birdied the third. And the fourth. And the fifth. And the sixth. And the seventh. He was eight-under – to seven. After the pair, he finished his first nine with a 28. People started whispering at that time. And Brown continued to growl. He bogeyed his 11th hole. And the 13th. And 14. And 15. He was 12 under at par-72 – with three holes left to shoot 59. Or 58. Or 57.

or 60.

Brown is different. On 18, after a fairway that dropped to within a few feet of the hole, his birdie attempt slipped past its right side. “I was thinking, okay, maybe just off the right edge,” she said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t break.” Still, 60 is 60. That tied for the best score of the day.

And, through two rounds, Brown is tied for the lead with the all-time top seed: world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. A lot can happen between now and Sunday, of course, and a lot has already happened, and here’s Brown. If he succeeds, he will be the second-youngest player to do so on the PGA Tour, according to the PGA Tour record books. (The youngest was Charles Kocsis, who, at 18 years, 6 months, 9 days, won the 1931 Michigan Open; Brown turns 19 in May.)

But again, that’s getting ahead of things.

And on Friday night, Brown was thinking about other things.

“I’m going to sleep after this,” he said, “and maybe get some food.”

Let’s see if we can find eight more items for the 9th weekend.

2. The PGA Tour’s communications team filmed Brown’s trip from the Bahamas to California, and you can watch it below.

The rep he was getting was “impossible to ignore,” he says. Doubts crept in during the tense moments, grief that never befell the 40th-ranked player. But instead of meeting some invincible man, the close calls somewhat eased Fleetwood’s fear of failure – as long as he forced himself through sickening treatment. When it would have been natural to step back and lick the wounds wisely, he went straight to the media and renewed his view of those terrible events.

“If you’re going to take the highs, you’ve got to take the hits too,” he says now. “I talk to myself when I do those interviews. I knew that if I spoke right away and said the right things – the things that I want to hear – that it was the most important part of the process for me.”

Fleetwood’s fearless vulnerability struck such a chord with the PGA Tour staff that, at their annual rookie round in November, they used his post-Travelers press release as a prime example of media relations. If some of Fleetwood’s refrains — “Thoughts and feelings are natural things we have; you can’t fight them” — seem straight out of a self-help book, they might be. He works with sports psychologist Bob Rotella and re-reads his books regularly.

Also, here’s a link to the story, and here’s a link to the video.

Another weekend tutorial tip

8. As snowstorms approach parts of the country, I thought the tweet below was worth sharing.

It’s a golf story that interests me

9. This is a good story. Written by Bill Smith of techblog.com, he describes a mini-golf putter that guides the face as you putt, if you need it.

Smith wrote:

He wanted a putter that would give him a break from those frustrating times when he couldn’t get the ball into the hole despite his best efforts. At first glance, it looks like an ordinary looking club with a mechanical head and a long shaft, but inside it lives a beast of a brushless motor with a high torque connected to a drive shaft to a worm gearbox that allows it to rotate the head on a vertical axis. This configuration keeps the head stable on impact while allowing for very quick changes during turns.

What golf is on TV this weekend?

10. Let’s do 10 things! Here’s golf on TV this weekend:

– on Saturday

2 am-8 am ET: Hero Dubai Desert Classic third round, Golf Channel

4 pm-7 pm ET: Third round on American Express, Golf Channel

7 pm-10 pm ET: Final round of the Mitsubishi Electric Championship, Golf Channel

– On Sunday

2 am-8 am ET: Hero Dubai Desert Classic final round, Golf Channel

4 pm-7 pm ET: American Express Final Round, Golf Channel

A video that made me laugh

11. Let’s do 11 things! The video below, from Bridgestone Golf, was great.