Tournament hub: 2026 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Coverage · prior: After the Quarterfinals · see also: U.S. Amateur · Desert Mountain Club

In the Brame household in Hammond, Louisiana, the number was always 23 — the count of USGA championships Grady Brame Sr. has played. After Wednesday at Desert Mountain, his son has a number of his own. It’s 1. As in titles.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Grady Brame Jr., 33, and Lawrence Allan, 31 — former Southeastern Louisiana University teammates, the No. 18 seed, playing their first U.S. Amateur Four-Ball together — won the 11th edition of the championship Wednesday, defeating Wales’ Jonathan Bale and Tomi Bowen 4-and-3 in the 18-hole final at Desert Mountain Club’s Cochise course. Brame Jr. sealed it with a six-foot birdie putt at the par-5 15th, then turned to find his father in the gallery for an emotional hug.

That Grady Sr. was there at all is its own story. The elder Brame — who with his son is the only father-son pairing to have each won the Louisiana Amateur (Sr. in 2002, Jr. in 2014-15) — was competing this week in the Senior Trans-Mississippi Amateur in Rancho Mirage, California. After an opening-round 74 Tuesday, he withdrew, got in his car, and drove four hours and fifteen minutes to Scottsdale, arriving in time to watch most of the semifinals. “He said regardless of how he was playing, his mind was elsewhere,” Brame Jr. said. “I think he’s a nutcase for doing that. It means the world to have him watching.”

The win made Allan and Brame the first Louisiana golfers to claim a USGA title since David Toms won the 2018 U.S. Senior Open, and made Allan — born in Scotland — the fourth foreign-born champion in U.S. Amateur Four-Ball history and the first Scottish-born USGA champion since Colin Montgomerie’s 2014 U.S. Senior Open. They qualified for their first Four-Ball last fall, in their first attempt. “This is my first USGA event,” Allan said. “This is surreal. I can’t quite believe we did it, to be honest.”

The Final: A Welsh Streak Snaps on the Seventh

Forty-five minutes after finishing lunch — and a 22-hole semifinal that morning — Allan and Brame were back on the first tee, facing a Welsh side that had played 32-under-par golf across its first four matches without losing. The two sides traded birdies over the opening two holes, then halved the next four. The break came at the par-3 seventh: Bale and Bowen made a double-bogey 5 and conceded the hole. It was the Welsh side’s first blemish in 89 holes — their last lost hole had come on the third hole of the second round of stroke play.

Allan and Brame never trailed again. Allan rolled in a 10-foot birdie at the 10th, then stuffed his tee shot to three feet at the par-3 11th to go 3 up. The lead nearly grew to 4 at the par-5 12th, where Allan’s 50-degree wedge from 150 yards settled a couple of feet away for a conceded eagle — but Bowen answered from 15 feet to halve. Bowen briefly stemmed the tide with a winning 15-footer at the par-3 13th, only for Brame to answer immediately with a 50-foot birdie bomb at the 14th to restore the 3-up margin.

At the par-5 15th, both Bale and Allan found trouble and three-putted for 5, leaving Brame a six-footer for birdie to win the championship. He made it with confidence. Allan and Brame had played the equivalent of 31-under-par match-play golf across their five matches — one stroke better than the Welsh side’s 32-under, across eight more holes. “I think we got outplayed today,” Bale said. “Those guys played great.”

Championship Match: How It Played

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

AS = all square · nU = Allan/Brame n up · green = hole won by Allan/Brame · gold = match-clinching hole. Level through six; Allan and Brame led from the 7th and closed it 4 and 3 with Brame’s six-foot birdie at the 15th.

23 to 1: The Brame Family Number

Golf has always run between Grady Brame Sr. and his eldest son. They remain the only father-son duo to have each won the Louisiana Amateur — Sr. in 2002, Jr. across 2014-15 during his college days at Southeastern Louisiana. Grady Jr. caddied for his father in the 2009 U.S. Amateur at Southern Hills. And for years, the number 23 has hung in the Brame house: the count of USGA championships the elder Brame has competed in — a tally Grady Jr. admits he’s grown a little tired of hearing about.

So when his father pulled out of his own tournament Tuesday and drove across the desert to watch, the weight of the moment wasn’t lost on anyone. “It means the world to have him watching,” Brame Jr. said. “It always makes it a little bit more special. I’m hoping it was definitely worth the drive.” It was. Grady Sr. arrived for the semifinals and was greenside at the 15th for the hug that followed his son’s first — and the family’s first — USGA title.

The Bayou Boys: From Pro Golf and Back

Both champions had professional chapters before this amateur one. Brame Jr. turned pro in 2015, played 40 PGA Tour Canada events, Monday-qualified for the 2017 Sanderson Farms Championship on the PGA Tour, and teed it up in three Korn Ferry Tour events. Allan, the Scotland native, played mini-tour golf in the U.S. and abroad before the head men’s coaching job at his alma mater, Southeastern Louisiana, “fell in my lap and I grabbed it with both hands.” He reinstated his amateur status in 2024; Brame, who works in commercial insurance, did the same last spring.

Chomping at the bit to compete again, the two old teammates signed up for a U.S. Amateur Four-Ball qualifier and made the field on their first attempt. That first appearance ended with a national championship. The 90 holes they needed to win their five matches were the second-most in championship history, trailing only last year’s winners Will Hartman and Tyler Mawhinney (92). Three of their five matches went extra holes — including the 22-hole semifinal — tying them into a week that saw seven extra-hole matches overall, one shy of the championship record set at Chambers Bay in 2021.

On the secret to a four-ball partnership, Brame pointed to one thing. “The trust makes it really easy. There’s always going to be ups and downs in this tournament, and if you have a partner you wholeheartedly trust — if you’re being an anchor during the round, that he’s going to pick you up — it makes it a lot easier.” Asked whether they’d celebrate with some Louisiana cuisine, both shook their heads. Allan had a one-word answer: “Beer.”

The Path: Every Marquee Story Retired Along the Way

Allan and Brame went 5-0, beating four of the week’s biggest storylines

Wednesday’s Semifinals

The semifinals took 40 holes to settle. Allan and Brame outlasted the Massa brothers in 22 holes, Allan holing a 10-footer on the par-3 13th playoff hole to advance to a final that would feature a combined 17 birdies and an eagle. On the other side, the Welsh duo ended the fairytale of the Long brothers — the Alpharetta, Georgia siblings who’d entered as alternates on May 7 — 1 up, when Bale struck an 8-iron from 197 yards to 14 feet on the 18th to set up the winning birdie. The Longs played the equivalent of 7-under with concessions and lost to 8-under. “It’s kind of surreal,” said William Long, 17. “Just to get the opportunity to play with my older brother is pretty crazy.”

Runners-Up: Wales’ Walker Cup Audition Continues

Jonathan Bale, 38, a Royal Porthcawl member and Louisiana Tech graduate who lives in Jupiter, Florida and works for a hedge fund, and Tomi Bowen, 23, who skipped college for full-time amateur golf, reached the final without losing a match — taking out the No. 4 seed, defending champion Tyler Mawhinney, and the No. 12 seed before the Long brothers in the semis. “Someone said yesterday 2,500 entries and we’re the last two teams standing,” Bale said. “To get to a final of a USGA event, I think it’s pretty successful.”

Both will spend the summer auditioning for the Great Britain & Ireland Walker Cup team that faces the United States in September. Bowen has a packed slate — the St. Andrews Trophy, The Amateur Championship, and the European Amateur — before entering DP World Tour Q-School in the fall, at which point he intends to turn professional. “The results state their own case,” Bowen said of his Walker Cup hopes. “I’ve just got to go out the next six weeks and perform, and that will do any talking.”

What the Champions Receive

• A gold medal for each player and custody of the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Trophy for the year
• Exemptions into the next 10 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championships, provided the side remains intact
• Exemptions into the 2026 U.S. Amateur at Merion Golf Club (Ardmore, Pa., August)
• Exemptions into the 2026 U.S. Mid-Amateur, if age-eligible, at Sand Valley Resort’s Lido Course (Nekoosa, Wis., September)
• Names inscribed on the 2026 USGA champions’ plaque at the USGA Museum in Liberty Corner, N.J.

Runners-up Bale and Bowen received silver medals and exemptions into the next three Four-Ball championships (though Bowen will forfeit his by turning professional). Semifinalists — the Long brothers and the Massa brothers — took home bronze medals and two-year exemptions. The next three championships head to Erin Hills (2027), Chambers Bay (2028), and Metedeconk National (2029).

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 Cochise and Outlaw; California teenagers Liam Eyer and Kailer Stone earned medalist honors at 16-under 127, one off the championship record, before falling in the Round of 32. Match play, contested entirely on Cochise, then eliminated every favorite in turn — the medalists, the defending champion Mawhinney, the 2024 champions Blanchard/Engel, the 2022 champions Wilfong/Womble, the 2025 runners-up Beck/Walters, the twice-runners-up hometown side Kittleson/Stoltz, and the historic senior side Defalco/Hoops. What remained was the most unseeded final four in championship history. From it emerged two former pros turned amateurs, teammates from a mid-major in Hammond, Louisiana, who entered their first Four-Ball together and left it as champions.

For complete daily coverage, the full bracket, stroke-play leaderboards, and championship history, see our 2026 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Coverage Hub →