Allan and Brame Win the 2026 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball at Desert Mountain

A college golf coach from Scotland and a commercial-insurance man from Baton Rouge — teammates two decades ago at a mid-major in Hammond, Louisiana — are U.S. Amateur Four-Ball champions. Lawrence Allan and Grady Brame Jr., the No. 18 seed, beat Wales’ Jonathan Bale and Tomi Bowen 4-and-3 on Wednesday at Desert Mountain to win the 11th edition of the championship.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — They were nobody’s pick. They were the No. 18 seed in a 32-side bracket. They had qualified for their first U.S. Amateur Four-Ball only last fall. And on Wednesday afternoon at Desert Mountain Club’s Cochise course, Lawrence Allan, 31, the head men’s golf coach at Southeastern Louisiana University, and Grady Brame Jr., 33, who works in commercial insurance in Baton Rouge, closed out the most unlikely week in U.S. Amateur Four-Ball history with a 4-and-3 win over the Welsh side of Bale and Bowen.

To get there, Allan and Brame eliminated the loudest names in the field one after another. In the Round of 16, they ended the week’s biggest hometown story, beating Scottsdale’s twice-runners-up Drew Kittleson and Drew Stoltz in 19 holes. In the quarterfinals, they retired the oldest side in the field — Jeremy Defalco and Bryan Hoops — 4-and-3, ending a historic senior-side run one match short of a semifinal. In Wednesday morning’s semifinal, they survived a 22-hole marathon against the Massa brothers, the last Arizona side standing. And in the final, they ran down a Welsh duo that had not lost a match all week.

For the championship’s 11th edition — its first contested at Desert Mountain — the bracket produced a final four with no past champion, no defending champion, no medalist, and no top-7 seed. The two players who emerged were, by World Amateur Golf Ranking and reputation, the quietest pair left standing. They are now exempt into the 2026 U.S. Amateur at Merion Golf Club, hold a 10-year exemption back into this championship, and have their names on a USGA trophy.

The Final: Allan and Brame Pull Away After the Turn

The championship match stayed level through six holes. Bale and Bowen drew first blood with a birdie on the opening hole, but Allan and Brame answered, squaring the match with a birdie of their own at the par-3 second and trading halves through the front. The turn is where the No. 18 seed took control.

Allan and Brame won the par-3 seventh with a birdie to go 1 up, and never trailed again. They pushed the lead to 2 up at the par-4 10th, to 3 up at the short par-3 11th, and after halving the 12th and 13th, closed the door with back-to-back winning holes at the 14th and the par-5 15th to reach 4 up with three to play. When the 15th was halved in the Welsh side’s favor — no, when Allan and Brame secured the 15th — the match was over: 4 and 3.

It was the same pattern that had carried them all week: weather the early storm, lean on whichever partner was hot that session, and grind the back nine. Bale and Bowen, who had been a combined 24-under par in cumulative match-play scoring entering the final and had not lost a match, simply ran into a side that would not give a hole away down the stretch.

Championship Match: How It Played

(18) Allan / Brame def. (29) Bale / Bowen, 4 and 3 · match status from Allan/Brame’s perspective

D1 = Allan/Brame 1 down · AS = all square · nU = Allan/Brame n up. Green columns mark holes Allan/Brame won. After falling 1 down at the opener, Allan and Brame led from the 7th on and closed the match 4 and 3 at the 15th.

The Path: Five Wins, and the Field’s Best Stories Retired Along the Way

Allan and Brame went 5-0 in match play, beating four of the week’s marquee storylines

The symmetry is hard to miss: Allan and Brame won the title by beating the two sides that had each authored the bracket’s best Cinderella runs. The Massa brothers had carried Arizona’s hopes to the final four after fourteen in-state sides started the week; Allan and Brame ended that in 22 holes Wednesday morning. Bale and Bowen had not lost a match — they had taken out the 4 seed, the defending champion, and the 12 seed — before running into Allan and Brame in the afternoon.

The Champions: A Coach, an Insurance Man, and an SLU Reunion

Allan and Brame met as teammates at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. Brame, from Baton Rouge, took in the Scotsman, and the two became fast friends. But they didn’t start playing much golf together until four years ago — when Allan, a reinstated amateur, gave up European mini-tour golf to become the head men’s golf coach at his alma mater.

“I went straight from mini tours to head coach,” Allan said earlier in the week, describing how the job “fell in my lap and I grabbed it with both hands.” The partnership with Brame, who plays his competitive golf around a career in commercial insurance, qualified for its first U.S. Amateur Four-Ball only last fall. Their first appearance ended with a trophy.

The family angle ran through the week, too: Brame’s father, Grady Brame Sr., is an accomplished amateur in his own right — he was competing in the Senior Trans-Mississippi Amateur this same week. The mutual-respect exchange the partners shared after the quarterfinals captured the whole run: “Without him I would’ve been beaten 5-and-4 this morning,” Allan said of Brame. The reply: “And vice versa this afternoon.” The two carried each other for five matches, and on Wednesday afternoon, they carried each other to a national championship.

Runners-Up: Wales’ Welsh Run Ends One Match Short

Jonathan Bale, 38, a Royal Porthcawl member who played college golf at Louisiana Tech and now lives in Jupiter, Florida, and Tomi Bowen, 23, who chose full-time amateur golf over college while working in his father’s window-fitting business, had been the story of the back half of the week. The Wales National Team partners — both inside the World Amateur Golf Ranking top 400 and exempt from qualifying — reached the final without losing a match, knocking out the No. 4 seed, defending champion Tyler Mawhinney, and the No. 12 seed along the way.

The runner-up finish still strengthens both players’ cases for Great Britain & Ireland Walker Cup selection ahead of September’s match against the United States at Lahinch. Bowen, who was playing desert golf for the first time all week, summed up his read of Cochise simply: “As long as you keep it on the grass, the fairways are great, greens are great.” The pair very nearly kept it on the grass all the way to a trophy.

Wednesday’s Semifinal Results

The morning’s semifinals took 40 holes to settle. Allan and Brame needed four extra holes to outlast the Massa brothers, 22 holes — extending a championship that had already seen six matches reach extra holes, two shy of the championship record of eight set at Chambers Bay in 2021. On the other side of the bracket, the Welsh duo ended the Long brothers’ fairytale — the Alpharetta, Georgia siblings who had entered as alternates eleven days earlier — 1 up, to set the final.

What the Champions Earned

For winning the 2026 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, Allan and Brame each receive a gold medal and a 10-year exemption back into the championship. Both also earn exemptions into the 2026 U.S. Amateur at Merion Golf Club, plus exemptions into the U.S. Mid-Amateur and, if age-eligible, the U.S. Senior Amateur. The runners-up, Bale and Bowen, along with the losing semifinalists and quarterfinalists, are exempt into the 2027 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball at Erin Hills in Erin, Wisconsin (May 22-27, 2027), provided each side remains intact.

The Week in Full

The 11th U.S. Amateur Four-Ball was the first USGA championship contested at Desert Mountain since the 1999 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur. A field of 128 sides played two rounds of stroke play across the Cochise and Outlaw courses; California teenagers Liam Eyer and Kailer Stone earned medalist honors at 16-under 127, one off the championship record, before falling to the eventual quarterfinalist Beckman/Erlandson in the Round of 32. Match play, contested entirely on Cochise, then methodically eliminated every favorite: the medalists, the defending champion, the 2024 champions, the 2022 champions, the 2025 runners-up, the twice-runners-up hometown side, and the historic senior side all exited before Wednesday afternoon. What remained — a Welsh side, a pair of brothers from Georgia, a pair of brothers from Arizona, and an SLU-teammate side from Louisiana — produced the most unseeded final four in championship history. The two quietest names in it won.