Scottie Scheffler Is Officially Scary, Blades Brown's Marathon Week & What Would You Pay To Play The Masters?

It turns out that Scottie Scheffler is still inevitable in the year 2026. Unlike last year, when a homemade ravioli night went horribly wrong, Scheffler got to begin a new PGA Tour season on his own terms, circled The American Express for his first start of the new year, and won in ridiculously impressive fashion. Naturally, he also made history with the win.

While Scheffler stole the show on Sunday, it was Blades Brown who was the story of the week heading into the final round. The 18-year-old (!!!) didn't have his best stuff across his final 18 holes, but he deserves both applause and a pass after the mind-boggling stretch of days he put together before even teeing it up on Thursday.

Across the pond, Patrick Reed won the Hero Dubai Desert Classic against an impressive field, but the conversation has immediately flipped from focusing on his victory to where exactly he's going to be playing the majority of his golf this year with LIV Golf negotiations up in the air.

We're also going to pose a question to readers this week about how much they'd be willing to play in the Masters after Michael La Sasso gave up his exemption to turn professional last week. Reach out via email at mark.harris@outkick.com or holler on X @itismarkharris.

Scary Scottie Scheffler Cruises To Historic Win In The Cali Desert

Scheffler began Sunday's final round at The AmEx one shot back of Si Woo Kim and tied with Blades Brown. Some in the golf world tried talking themselves into the idea of Scheffler not finding the winner's circle when it was all said and done, but that is, of course, exactly what happened.

Scheffler ultimately won the tournament by four shots, even with a double bogey on the 71st hole. Impressive, ridiculous, and generational have all been used over and over again to describe Scheffler and his previous 19 wins on Tour. Those adjectives are all fair, but for this week's victory, scary may be the only word to describe what we saw.

Typically, we can point to Scheffler's approach play each time he finds himself atop the leaderboard. While he did finish T-6 in greens in regulation, he was 47th in the field in strokes gained: approach for the week. That number certainly isn't bad, it's well above average in a very large field event, but it doesn't jump out at you in the world of Scheffler statistics.

This week, it was about the putter. He finished 18th in strokes gained: putting for the week and first in putts per green in regulation. Scheffler is unbeatable when the putter is even remotely warm, but when the guy who is the best in the world at hitting to the fat part of the greens leads the field in putts per green hit, well, everyone else in the field is simply playing for second place.

Scheffler is now just the third player in the modern era to reach 20 PGA Tour wins and four major championships before turning 30. Two fellas by the name of Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus are the other two players to accomplish the feat. Oh, and the win pushed his career earnings on Tour to over $100 million, making him just the third player (Rory McIlroy and Woods) to do so. 

Scheffler won six times in 2025, and while we're not even a month into 2026, it feels like at least seven wins is the absolute floor for the guy this time around.

Oh, To Be 18 Again…And Also Really Good At Golf

Blades Brown wasn't able to earn his first win this week in what was just his 16th start on Tour – what a bum – but shouldn't be too disappointed with a T-18 finish at The AmEx. The fact that the 18-year-old played his way into Sunday's final group alongside Scheffler is impressive on every level, but especially so when the young man had to be running on absolute fumes.

Brown finished T-17 in The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic on the Korn Ferry Tour on Wednesday. The AmEx began on Thursday, which gave him roughly 24 hours to get from the Bahamas to La Quinta, Calif. He somehow made it across the country and proceeded to shoot 67-60-68 in his first 54 holes to have a legitimate chance of winning the event.

These eight straight days of playing competitive golf all took place a week after he completed high school. Blades Brown is not like other 18-year-olds.

"Getting to play with Scottie Scheffler in the final group at 18 years old is -- I had to pinch myself a couple of times just to make sure I was, you know, this was real," Brown said after his final round. "Not the Sunday that I would have liked, but I overall had so much fun playing the American Express this week."

Patrick Reed Is A Free Agent

Patrick Reed won the Hero Dubai Desert Classic by four shots over the weekend.

During his pre-tournament press conference in Dubai, the 35-year-old said that he is "supposed to be" playing in LIV Golf's season opener in Riyadh. Hold on, supposed to be? That's interesting phrasing to use for multiple reasons.

For starters, the assumption was that Reed was signed with LIV through at least 2026. On top of that, the event in Riyadh begins on February 4; it's not as if the event is weeks away, and there is a ton of time to get things squared away on a new contract.

While Reed didn't go into much detail before the event in Dubai, he was asked about the "supposed to be" comments following his win on Sunday, and gave more eye-opening insight.

"We're still finalizing the contract," Reed said. "We’re not complete on that yet."

He was then asked if he was a free agent, and Reed replied by saying, "At the moment, yes, sir" before confirming he's not in talks with the PGA Tour "right now."

The interesting exchange and admission come just one week after Reed talked up the PGA Tour, calling it "the best tour in the world" and that he could see himself back on Tour "at some point again."

Reed does not meet the criteria of the Tour's recently created ‘Returning Member Program’ that Brooks Koepka used to make his return this season. Is there some sort of avenue he could use if he weren't to re-sign with LIV Golf in the coming days? Did he burn every single bridge when he jumped ship to the Saudi-backed circuit in 2022?

Those are questions we don't know the answers to; nobody does, but it sounds like a fluid situation, and one that does not put LIV as a whole in the best spot. That, we do know.

What Would You Pay To Play In The Masters?

The GOAT, Kyle Porter of Normal Sport, beat me to the punch with this question in his newsletter, but it has been racking my brain following the news of Michael La Sasso turning professional to join LIV Golf last week. 

La Sasso received an exemption into the 2026 Masters after winning the NCAA title a year ago at Ole Miss, but gave up said exemption with his decision to turn pro. It has been rumored that La Sasso signed a contract worth, at minimum, $20 million to join LIV Golf, which begs the question: what would you pay to actually play in the Masters?

Let's just assume that La Sasso did receive $20 million guaranteed to join LIV and give up his Masters exemption, which, in this case, nobody with a functioning brain would actually turn around and pay $20 million to tee it up in the Masters. Having said that, there are very successful professional golfers at this very moment who are not in the Masters field that would pay an obscene amount of money for a chance to compete at Augusta National this year.

Personally, there is certainly a comma and probably four zeros involved in the check I'd write to play Augusta National just once. To play in the Masters, knowing I'll miss the cut by a million as a four handicap anyways? That check would be even larger.

Shoot over your thoughts and answers via email at mark.harris@outkick.com or holler on X @itismarkharris.