Miles Russell, the Lone Amateur in Austin, Opens With a 67 and Crashes the Top 10

There were 120 names in the field at the Austin Championship presented by Compliance Solutions, and exactly one of them was playing for nothing but the scoreboard. Miles Russell, the 18-year-old high school senior from Jacksonville Beach, Fla., did not look out of place among them on Thursday. Russell shot a 5-under 67 on the Fazio Canyons Course at Omni Barton Creek, and once the first round finished up Friday morning, the lone amateur in Austin was sitting T10.

Russell is the only player marked as an amateur on the official PGA TOUR leaderboard (opens in a new tab), and he got into the inaugural event on a sponsor exemption, per Athlon Sports (opens in a new tab). Fazio Canyons plays to a par of 72, so the 67 put him five shots behind Trace Crowe, whose career-best 62 leads the tournament. When darkness stopped play Thursday, Russell was T9. The players who finished their rounds Friday morning shuffled the board a bit, and nine players ended up ahead of him: Crowe, Max Greyserman and Erik van Rooyen at 64, Blades Brown at 65, and a five-man pack at 66. Russell is part of a nine-way logjam at 67 alongside names like Brian Harman, Austin Smotherman and Aaron Wise.

A Week That Started With a Pen

The timing on this one is almost too neat. Russell signed with Florida State on Wednesday, per Athlon Sports, then teed it up against PGA TOUR pros the next day and outscored more than 100 of them. The Associated Press described him as a high school senior who plans to play for the Seminoles next year, and Golf Channel reported that he headed into signing day as the top-ranked player in the Class of 2027.

Earlier this week, Russell was named AJGA Rolex Junior Player of the Year for the third time, Golf Channel reported (opens in a new tab). Only Phil Mickelson and Vicki Goetze had won it more than twice. Tiger Woods won it twice. Russell was already the youngest winner of the award back in 2023, breaking a mark held by Woods, according to Golf Channel, and he owns two Junior Players Championship titles.

The PGA TOUR's own highlights captured one of Thursday's best moments for him: an 81-yard approach at the 18th that set up birdie. The PGA TOUR's Round 1 story (opens in a new tab) noted that Brown is not the only teenager in contention this week, and flagged Russell as someone who could be a factor on the weekend.

Not His First Rodeo

Russell has been showing up on pro leaderboards since long before he was old enough to vote. At 15, he became the youngest player ever to make a Korn Ferry Tour cut, and his T20 at the 2024 LECOM Suncoast Classic was the youngest top-25 finish on the PGA TOUR or Korn Ferry Tour since at least 1983, according to Golf Channel.

This season has been his busiest yet at the top level. According to PGA TOUR results, Russell finished T50 at the Puerto Rico Open in March and missed the cut at the ISCO Championship in July. In between came the big one. He qualified for the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills through a playoff at final qualifying in Florida, played all four rounds and finished T39. Most recently he made the cut at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, where he also opened with a 67 before finishing T64 in an event shortened by wind.

The amateur résumé from the summer is just as loud. Russell was runner-up at the U.S. Junior Amateur, came into the U.S. Amateur at Merion as the No. 4 player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, and was named to the U.S. Walker Cup team, per the USGA (opens in a new tab).

Good Company

Russell is not the first amateur to make noise early in a PGA TOUR week this season. It has become a bit of a theme. Oklahoma's Ryder Cowan opened the U.S. Open with a 68 and sat inside the top five after the first round at Shinnecock, per the PGA TOUR. NCAA champion Preston Stout of Oklahoma State opened the John Deere Classic with a 66.

Cowan is a familiar name for Russell, too. The two came through the same playoff to reach Shinnecock, and at the U.S. Amateur this summer, Cowan knocked Russell out in the Round of 64 at Merion, 2 and 1, according to the USGA.

The difference this week is the field. In Austin, Russell is the only amateur in a 120-player field built around FedExCup Fall bubble battles, and he is hanging with players fighting for their 2027 jobs. You can read how that field took shape in our Austin Championship field preview, and how the leaders got there in our Round 1 recap.

What Comes Next

Russell had not started his second round as of Friday morning, per the PGA TOUR leaderboard, and was scheduled to go off the 10th tee in the early afternoon in Austin. With the course giving up red numbers all over the place on Thursday, holding his spot will take more of the same.

There is a strange beauty to his week. Plenty of the players around him on the leaderboard are scrapping for FedExCup Fall position and their status for next season. Russell is playing for a weekend tee time and a little more proof that the hype is real.

A three-time Player of the Year, a fresh Florida State signee and now a T10 in a PGA TOUR event, all inside one week. Whatever happens on Friday, the 18-year-old has already made Austin his kind of town.

Sources: PGA TOUR, Associated Press, Golf Channel, Athlon Sports, USGA. More golf coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: PGA TOUR.