Grady Brame Jr., whose father Grady, uncle Frank, late grandfather Scott and late great uncle Frank Jr. of Alexandria often set the bar high for golf achievements, can now claim a prestigious unprecedented victory in the Brame family.
Grady Jr., 33, of Hammond, and former Southeastern Louisiana University teammate Lawrence Allan won the 11th U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship at Desert Mountain Club in Scottsdale, Arizona late Wednesday.
Brame Jr. and Allan completed a remarkable run, defeating Welshmen Jonathan Bale, 38, and 23-year-old Tomi Bowen, 4 and 3, in the 18-hole championship match. Allan, 31, was born in Scotland but now resides in Hammond where he’s the men’s golf coach at his alma mater.
To get to the championship match, Brame and Allan survived three extra-hole matches, including a 22-hole marathon in the semifinals on Wednesday morning. Allan delivered in the clutch in the 22-hole victory, making a 10-footer on the par-3 13th to put the side into the championship match. That match featured a combined 17 birdies and an eagle.
By winning the title, Grady Jr. and Allan became the first Louisiana golfers to register a USGA title since David Toms’ 2018 triumph in the U.S. Senior Open.
Allan becomes the fourth foreign-born golfer to get his name on the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Trophy. The 90 holes required to win their five matches was only second behind last year’s titlists Will Hartman and Tyler Mawhinney (92).
The victory also earns the duo exemptions into the U.S. Amateur in August at Merion Golf Club and the U.S. Mid-Amateur this September at Sand Valley Resort in central Wisconsin.
Other bounty they collect for winning:
- A gold medal for each player
- Custody of the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Trophy for the ensuing year
- Exemptions into the next 10 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championships, provided the side remains intact
- Names inscribed on the 2026 USGA champions’ plaque that resides inside the USGA Museum’s Hall of Champions, in Liberty Corner, N.J.
Grady Jr. said he has often heard his father boast of how many USGA championships he has played (23), so going into this tournament the father-son tally was 23-3.
Brame Jr. enjoyed an emotional hug with his dad shortly after holing the match-clinching 6-foot birdie putt at the 15th hole. The elder Brame had been competing in the Senior Trans-Miss at Mission Hills Country Club, in the Coachella Valley of California, shooting an opening-round 74 before deciding to withdraw on Tuesday afternoon and make the 4-hour, 15-minute drive to Desert Mountain, arriving in time to catch most of the semifinals.
“He said regardless of how he was playing, his mind was elsewhere,” Grady Jr. said of his father’s long drive to watch him play. “It didn’t matter if he shot 62 or 72 or 82, he was probably heading in this direction. And I think he’s a nutcase for doing that. Oh, it means the world to have him watching. It always makes it a little bit more special. I’m hoping it was definitely worth the drive.
“He does like to bring it up that his [USGA] tally is 23,” he said. “I’m currently at three. But I’m trying to go back and count the number of times that he’s won a USGA event, and I don’t think that he has, and so I would say that he can have his 23; I’ll have my one win.”
Grady Jr. and his father are the only father-son duo to have won the Louisiana Amateur; Grady Sr. in 2002 and Jr. in 2014-15 during his collegiate days. The younger Brame also caddied for his dad in the 2009 U.S. Amateur at Southern Hills Country Club.
Brame Jr., unlike his father or the other notable golfers in his family, turned professional in 2015, competing in 40 PGA Tour Canada events as well as Monday-qualifying for the 2017 Sanderson Farms event on the PGA Tour, and three Korn Ferry Tour events.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Much of this information comes from David Shefter, a senior staff writer at the USGA. Email him at dshefter@usga.org.)