It’s tough being the “old guy” sometimes. During tournament weeks on the APGA Tour, 35-year-old Michael Bradham stays in rental houses with peers who are a decade younger. The costs are cheaper that way, and the camaraderie is priceless. Sitting around in the evenings, golf is often the topic of conversation, but the youngsters can get “a little loud and rowdy” reciting stuff like their favorite lines from movies.

“And I’m, like, ‘Hey, can you keep it down? We’re right here, you don’t have to yell it,’” Bradham says with a laugh. “Those guys have taken a couple of years off my life, but being with them, I absolutely enjoy it.”

In truth, having an older brother type around is good for the whole crew, and in Bradham they have an especially strong mentor. The San Antonio native is a father of three who won three times in college playing for Prairie View A&M University. After a short time on the pro mini-tours, he became a project manager for an architectural firm in Florida.

In 2022, with the encouragement of family and friends, Bradham returned to pro golf on the APGA Tour and won the Fall Series finale at Tustin Ranch in California. He has since become a consistent contender in events, sharpening his game to the level that he reached this year’s PGA Tour Q School Second Stage, while also becoming one of the most admired men on the circuit.

“He’s an amazing guy,” said APGA CEO and co-founder Ken Bentley. “To me, he’s really what the APGA is all about. We’re all about giving opportunities to guys to live out their dreams. Michael is that guy. Working a job, always thinking about playing—he’s got that opportunity now.”

For those qualities, Bradham’s peers and an APGA panel voted him winner of the tour’s 2024 Adrian Stills Award presented by Cisco. Stills is a co-founder of the APGA and played on the PGA Tour, and the annual award goes to the golfer who “best embodies the qualities of character, sportsmanship, courage and giving back to the game and community.” Cisco is among the tour’s most ardent supporters, including sponsoring three tournaments each year.

Informed on a video conference call in earlier this month that he was receiving the award, Bradham broke down in tears and spoke of the support he had received throughout the years in his golf endeavors, particularly from his mother, Yolanda Brown Bradham, who passed away from cancer in mid-2022 after she saw him fulfill his goal of playing fulltime professional golf.

“It was emotional because both of my parents have always been super supportive of following after your dreams and making sure you follow through and finish what you start,” Bradham told Golf Digest after getting the award news. “It’s about helping as many people as you can, just being a good person and being a good role model for my kids because of those values.”

In earning the award, Bradham receives from Cisco $25,000 to support his golf career and $10,000 to donate to the charity of his choice. Also, Cisco will give Bradham exemptions into the two limited-field Cisco-sponsored Invitational events for the 2025 APGA Tour season—the APGA Cisco Invitational and the APGA Billy Horschel Invitational presented by Cisco.

Michael Bradham won a Fall Series event in his first year on the APGA Tour. (Photo courtesy of APGA Tour)

Bradham does stand out among his fellow competitors for another reason—he is nearly 6 feet, 7 inches tall, weighs 317 pounds and wears a size-15 shoe. He says he was of average size through the middle of high school but grew 12 inches over the next two years. Bradham says he receives plenty of double takes on the driving range and gets some needling, of course. He recalled recently having a fellow Q School competitor marvel that his size is the same as an NFL lineman who lives in his neighborhood. “Why aren’t you in the NFL?” the player asked.

As a kid, Bradham explained, “Just didn’t want to play football, didn’t want to play basketball. My dad [Donnie] already played golf, and I got bored with those other sports coming out of middle school. I picked up a club and made the team in high school and have been hooked ever since.”

After playing well in college, Bradham gave pro golf a shot. But his results on mini-tours were just OK and money got tight. When he and his wife, Michelle, had their first child, daughter Makayla, nine years ago, Bradham figured it was time to find more long-term security, and that seemed to be a good call when the couple had two more children—son Michael Jr., who 5, and daughter Maliyah, 4.

Having earned an architecture degree in college, Bradham joined a former golf teammate’s architectural firm in Jacksonville, Fla., and got out to play competitive amateur events when he could. Among his buddies in the area was Montrele Wells, who began playing on the APGA in 2012 and was given the inaugural Stills Award in 2022. Wells watched Bradham shoot a smooth 66 one day and implored him to try the APGA.

Encouraged by his wife and parents to go for it, Bradham quit his job, moved the family back to San Antonio and began working side jobs in golf retail and food delivery to build up reserves to play. (He has since teamed up with a friend and benefactor who pays for many of his tour and travel expenses.)

“It was scary,” Bradham said of taking the leap. Yet he couldn’t ignore the reasons for doing so. “Not having an answer for my kids when they ask me what I want to be. That’s really kind of been the motivation and the reason to get back out and play and stick with it and do everything I can to play.”

Bradham essentially has two families now, and while his own children sometimes pine over him not being home for some weekends, he’s also got his other “kids” to look after on the APGA. It’s not all about shushing or keeping them in line. If they listen, Bradham has plenty of life experience and wisdom to share.

“I tell those guys that if you consistently find ways to play good golf, you’re going to end up in places that you only dreamt of,” he said. “And when that becomes a reality, you’re going to look back and be, like, ‘man, I’m glad I went through everything I went through to get here.’

“That’s what I’m playing for—the kiddos and achieving dreams and getting to the PGA Tour.”

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com