Jeremy Schilling

In the moments after his maiden PGA Tour victory Sunday in Cabo, Blades Brown made sure to thank several people, including his dad. Parke Brown was initially diagnosed in 2022 with bone cancer and given months to live, only for doctors to discover that he actually had hairy cell leukemia. That discovery was a lifesaver, literally. That type of leukemia isn’t curable, but it is highly treatable. Parke went through 20 rounds of chemo, only missing two of Blades’ golf tournaments during his treatment. He wrapped up his chemo about 12 weeks before Blades captured medalist honors at the 2023 U.S. Amateur, where Blades said of his dad’s cancer battle: “I just use it as fuel. Having him here is just awesome. Like he could not be here right now; that’s crazy to think about. I remember when I qualified, he posted, My son is going to the U.S. Amateur! What dad can say that after thinking that they were going to die?” Now a few years later, Parke, 55, is doing well health-wise and has been traveling with Blades throughout his nearly two-year professional golf career. He often collects mementos – balls, gloves, etc. – along the way to document Blades’ journey, and it all goes in his man cave back home, a shrine of sorts. Blades' infectious energy; he gets a lot of it from Parke. On Sunday in Cabo, Parke Brown got to see his only son Blades become a PGA Tour champion, the tour's youngest in 95 years. Amazing stuff.

Rory's full explanation of what happened on 12th hole, where he received a two-shot penalty for improving his lie: "They showed me a video from 12. Hit my first chip shot from down on the bottom of the hill, then get up, came back down and rolled into a divot. And then as I went to sort of just get a feel for the lie, the close-up of the camera, you can see like a little piece of grass around the divot sort of lies down as I put my club down behind the ball, and it doesn't -- I guess the grass doesn't return back to its original position. "And I doubt like -- obviously there's no intent. I play by the rules. I feel like this is never really -- I try to do everything that I can to never end up in these positions. But just by looking at the video, like it doesn't look -- it doesn't look very good. Obviously that wasn't my intent. I'm just trying to get a feel for the lie. The ball is in a sort of bottom of a sandy divot. I'm trying to feel like if I can get a 54-degree, like, onto the back of the ball, but in the process, this piece of grass has sort of laid down, and it doesn't -- you know, the technical -- I guess the technical term for the rule is if you press down on the piece. "I don't feel like I pressed down. But at the same time, I don't want the perception of, like, people thinking like I got away with something either. So I'm happy to take a 2-shot penalty and move on and move into tomorrow."