After making headlines at the Korn Ferry Tour and then the PGA’s development tour, 18-year-old Blades Brown is already turning heads at the American Express. While pro golfers, including Scottie Scheffler and Rickie Fowler, were already impressed by the young phenom, he has now managed to win his fans’ hearts as well after a clip of him went viral.

“Rock, Paper, Scissors, Birdie,” the PGA Tour captioned the video post. In it, Blades can be seen playing multiple rounds of rock, paper, scissors with another young fan.

After both played scissors, paper, scissors, and paper, Blades finally won with a stone to the fan’s scissors. As he walked away, a girl came over for a quick high five, and Blades didn’t mind that either. What came next, though, made the fan interaction even more worth it.

After his tee shot, Brown eventually sank his putt for a birdie, capping the wholesome moment with a great golf shot, then pumped his fist to the cheering crowd. The sequence — game with fan, handshake, birdie, celebration — captured everything that makes Brown different. Brown was in contention, deep into the weekend. But as a teen trying to make his way to the pros, he understands fan sentiment matters.

Brown sat second at -21 when the clip made its rounds, one shot behind Si Woo Kim. Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark, and Eric Cole lurked at -20.

His Round 2 scorecard, a course-record 60 on the Nicklaus Tournament Course, already rewrote expectations for the week. Brown shattered Bobby Jones’s 103-year-old record in August 2023, becoming the youngest U.S. Amateur stroke-play medalist at 16, a prior report revealed. He bypassed college entirely to turn pro. The decision raised eyebrows then, but it looks smart now. Even Scheffler agrees.

“It sounds like an 18-year-old shooting 59 is a pretty good start to his career there,” he said after the round.

The rock-paper-scissors moment might end up mattering more for his long-term trajectory than any single round. Scores fade from memory. Personality lingers. And fans have taken notice.

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Blades Brown’s fan-friendly style wins hearts at The American Express

The reactions poured in after the PGA Tour posted the clip. “Blades Brown is looking like he’s gonna be a STAR on the PGAT,” one fan wrote on X. In fact, he already is. Just consider how he even impressed Fowler, who also became popular on the tour around the same age, when he was 19. However, he still had some advice for the youngster:

“Soak it up, have fun. It goes by pretty quickly,” Fowler said after his round.

“I’m seeing Jordan Spieth kind of gravitas, but this kid has a lotta room to run.. 18yo, and tied in a group for 2nd behind Scottie Scheffler.”

The Spieth comparison is valid. Both players arrived young, carried themselves with preternatural calm, and seemed to understand what the moods of the fans were. Their composure and connections with galleries mattered as much as ball-striking.

“Imagine being 18 and playing on a big stage against the best in the world and being this calm and cool,” another fan observed. “There are guys on tour for years that aren’t this relaxed.”

That observation cuts to the core of Brown’s appeal. The composure isn’t manufactured. The interaction wasn’t staged. He simply turned to the crowd, played a childhood game, shook a kid’s hand, and then executed the shot. No hesitation. His quality of remaining level-headed, no matter what the situation is in front of him, is certainly grabbing a lot of attention, too.

“I just love watching this kid, so obsessed with his story,” one reaction read. The story, of course, is Brown leaving a collegiate opportunity and jumping right into the deep waters with the pros. While Scheffler might say that he doesn’t have scar tissue yet like the older players, what deserves applause is that he is still competing against them, not just participating.

Others kept it simple: “Made it happen.”

Many doubted the 18-year-old’s decision to skip college. But as we can see, he’s already crossing paths with the best in the golfing world. No doubt, he will be doing that a lot more for at least the next two decades.

Brown heads into Sunday one shot off the lead. The fans are watching the leaderboard. They’re also watching the spaces between shots — the handshakes, the fist pumps, the moments. That’s the part sponsors notice. That’s the part galleries remember. And that’s part of growing into a needle mover.