THE AMERICAN EXPRESS

January 22, 2026

Blades Brown

PGA WEST Pete Dye Stadium Course

Quick Quotes

Q. Top 20 yesterday in the Bahamas. Walk me through the past 24 hours of getting over to the Bahamas to today in Palm Springs for round one?

BLADES BROWN: Finished the round. Had to quickly take a shower and then drove to the airport. Then hopped on a massive ONEflight jet. Ferren Rajput, he was kind of enough to escort me on the way here. It was a six-hour flight. I think it was his jet, so it was awesome. My second time ever flying private. It was beautiful.

Then, yeah, arrived here around 8:00 p.m. last night. Got some Panda Express. Got some groceries. Slept, started sleeping at 10:00. Then woke up at around 5:00, got here a little early to make a couple putts, because, I mean, it was blowing 30 the entire way, and then you get here and then it's perfect. So it's two completely different situations. But I had a lot of fun today, and bogey-free round, I'll take that any day of the week.

Q. With your finish last year at Myrtle Beach you had the ONEflight credit. Was this something you kind of were saving on to that and thought in theory it could happen?

BLADES BROWN: Yes, yes. This was a perfect time to use those ONEflight hours. And I can't thank them enough to go on their jet. Flying private is special, it's really cool.

Q. So from the turnaround from finishing yesterday to teeing it up this morning, how do you kind of mentally and physically turn it around for another consecutive day of playing golf?

BLADES BROWN: Yeah, I love what I do. I love to play golf. You're telling me I get to play, hopefully, eight straight competitive golf rounds, one being on the Korn Ferry Tour and the other one on the PGA TOUR? Like what's not to love about that. So essentially the first four rounds on the Korn Ferry Tour, those were my practice rounds for this event. And then I got here and thought I played pretty well today.

Q. How comforting is it that you were able to play this last year that it's not your first time blind?

BLADES BROWN: That actually is one of the reasons we thought to do this was because of my practice rounds I played here a year ago, so I semi knew what the course was. My caddie helped me out a little bit. But my job is to execute the shots that I can, and we did just that today.

Q. Solid round today, how are you feeling going into tomorrow's round, different course?

BLADES BROWN: Yeah, Nicklaus, I really love that golf course. I mean, the golf courses here are awesome. La Quinta Country Club, Nicklaus Course, Stadium Course, any course on the PGA TOUR is phenomenal, and I'm so blessed every single time I get to be in one of these events, and I can't wait for what's next.