Brian Blanchard, Sam Engel take down heralded teens to win U.S. Amateur Four-Ball

Precocious teenaged golfers generally are not burdened with scar tissue, a built-in advantage against older opponents, though occasionally they are reminded that experience counts, too. Brian Blanchard and Sam Engel delivered that message in the final of the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship on Wednesday.

Blanchard, 31, and Engel, 29 never trailed and defeated heralded teens, Blades Brown, 17, and Jackson Herrington, 18, 2-up, to win the ninth U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in Flourtown, Pa.

“It's hard to put that into words,” Engel said. “It's something that Brian and I have always dreamed about. Having the chance to compete in these championships and compete for a prize like that, it's super special. Hard to put into words.”

The match was tied through 12 holes, but Blanchard and Engel won the following two holes with birdies. They saw their advantage reduced to 1 up when their opponents birdied the 17th hole, but won the match with a birdie at 18.

Engel played college golf at Cal State Northridge, had a brief run at professional golf, then regained his amateur status. Blanchard, a software engineer, attended Arizona State, though he did not play golf for the Sun Devils.

Their collective lack of a gilded golf resume notwithstanding, they were able to upend a pair of teens with credentials that portend professional golf careers.

Brown, who will be a junior at Brentwood Academy in Nashville, Tenn., in the fall, already has turned heads, both for his first name, Blades, and the fact that he tied for 26th in his PGA Tour debut, playing on a sponsor exemption, at the Myrtle Beach Classic earlier this month.

His partner, Herrington, meanwhile, will be a freshman at the University of Tennessee in the fall.

“Those guys are unbelievable players,” Blanchard said. “I'm sure we'll be watching them on TV for many years to come. But I think playing great players like that, for me personally, kind of takes the pressure off because you know you have to play great or you're going to lose.”

The winners receive a 10-year exemption into the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship, so long as they remain a team, exemptions into the U.S. Amateur at Hazeltine National Golf Club this summer, and exemptions into the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship.