Big week for Cullan Brown’s family starts with finding a way to watch Emma Talley play and will end with golf course named for late UK golfer

Cullan Brown with his mother, Emily, at the 2019 Barbasol Championship. (Gary Moyers Photo)

Somehow you just knew that Cullan Brown’s family was watching this weekend when Princeton native Emma Talley came so close to winning her first LPGA Tour event before losing in a playoff at the ISPS World Invitational in Ireland. However, it was a little harder than expected for his parents, Emily and Rodney, and younger sister, Cathryn, to watch because they were in Columbia, S.C., for an American Junior Golf Association event Cathryn is playing in this week.

Still, Talley’s was both Cullan Brown’s role model and close friend before his passing and the UK golfer’s family was not about to let not having Golf Channel on the TV in their hotel keep them from watching.

“We were in a conundrum with no Golf Channel at the hotel but a local restaurant that UK golfer Jensen Castle has recommended for us to eat did have the Golf Channel on when we went Saturday,” Emily Brown said. “Sunday our whole plan was around watching the back nine and we did, including the playoff.

“The best part of the whole thing is that we have the old Emma back. She sounded and acted like herself. She was very upbeat, very encouraging, very positive. It was so wonderful to see her back like that.”

Emily Brown had talked to Talley a few weeks ago after Talley tied a course record in a LPGA event with her best round of the year and Talley reminded her that she had predicted her game was returning to form.

The two were texting at 4 a.m. EST Sunday — which was 11 a.m. in Ireland — before Tally teed.

“She texted that a year ago today was the last conversation she had with Cullan,” said Brown.

Her son passed Aug. 4, 2020, at age 20 after a battle with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer in his left thigh.

“It has been tough. A couple of times I have caught myself still talking to him,” Emily Brown said.

Now on August 9, the Mineral Mound State Park Golf Course in Eddyville will officially become The Cullan at Mineral Mound State Park. The celebration will include a ceremonial tee shot from Cathryn Brown and talk by Emily Brown about her son — the 2016 state high school champion at Lyon County and an all-SEC freshman team selection in 2019 at UK after averaging 72.42 over eight 18-hole events.

“It certainly is a bittersweet moment. I am touched by the way people want to remember him and continue his touch on the game but yet I would give anything to have him back and just let it still be plain Mineral Mound,” Brown’s mother said. “But I know Cullan would not want me to say no to talking, so I will get through it.”

She’s glad her daughter, who was third in an AJGA event in South Dakota recently, is playing in South Carolina this week and happy both parents will be allowed on the course to watch her play. Last year due to COVID only one family member was allowed at AJGA events.

When they get back home, Cathryn not only will hit the ceremonial first tee shot at The Cullan but she will join members of the UK golf team — “Cullan’s brothers” — for an 18-hole round after the ceremony.

“They invited her to be their 12th man, so she will go out and play with the boys,” Emily Brown said. “There is a not a course in Kentucky that Cullan spent more time on than Mineral Mound but I could probably count on one hand the times he actually played 18 holes. Same for Cathryn. They never played a full 18. My kids never went to play golf to get better. They went there to practice to get better.”

Emily Brown also knows her son would wonder what all the fuss will be about Aug. 9 at the ceremony.

“Cullan would not have wanted all of this. It did not like notoriety or recognition,” Emily Brown said. “It is great people want to honor him and remember him but that is just not something he would have ever expected or wanted.”