“I wanted to get that Triple Crown . . . it was a relief. Finally.”
Brown had a great chance to do it as early as six years ago, but he lost to Poverty Bay member Tini Hawea in the final — making it three defeats in his three King of the Coast finals.
Since his early teens, Brown has been among the district's best male players and the most promising golfer to emerge here in many years.
He made the PBEC team for the national interprovincial at just 16 years of age and attended Rotorua Boys' High School's golf academy, with the ambition of becoming professional.
His breakthrough win — the 2010 East Coast Open — came in his first year at the academy.
Part 2 of the Triple Crown was achieved when he won the Poverty Bay Open in 2012, but other than some impressive results at national interprovincial level, a few finals and a long-time dominance of his home Waikohu course, more major local titles eluded him.
Surprisingly so, considering in 2014 he claimed the highlight of his amateur career with victory in the senior matchplay division of the 77th Aotearoa Maori championships at Te Puke.
For those who know the man his mates call “Wi”, with the talent he possesses, the Triple Crown was an inevitability — when, not if.
A bit of extra work helped.
Now a qualified greenkeeper, Brown has been putting more time into his game of late and Sunday's win reflects that effort.
There was a fitting synchronicity to Higham being the last man standing between Brown and the Triple.
Higham was the previous player to achieve the Triple. He did it with his 2014 Poverty Bay Open win — his opponent in the final? William Brown.
Higham, a three-time King of the Coast champion, looked on track to deny Brown again.
“I was 2-down for quite a while,” said Brown, who was nursing a “pretty stiff” neck, which had got sore on Saturday afternoon.
“It was just a matter of being patient.”
Brown won the par-3 17th to square the match and it was game on heading down the par-4 18th.
A pivotal moment came as the pair assessed their second shots.
Higham hit first but left his ball short of the green.
Brown, meanwhile, had “a pretty dirty” lie in the rough.
“There was a weed in front of it (his ball) and it was well down in the grass. I couldn't really see the ball. But I saw the club Andy pulled out and he was short.”
Noting that, Brown chose to go with a 52-degree wedge and hit a superb shot to eight feet past the pin.
Higham chipped reasonably close for his third and watched as Brown methodically studied the line of his putt, at one stage getting almost horizontal.
“I couldn't read which way it was going to go, so I went straight at the hole.”
The rest is history, which Brown is hungry to add to.
“I want to ride this wave to the Poverty Bay Open and possibly the New Zealand Amateur (at Poverty Bay in October).”
He also has a longer-term goal involving the national interprovincial, this year being held at Auckland's Whitford Park.
Brown has played over 60 national interprovincial matches in 11 different provinces since his debut at Palmerston North in 2009.
His career aim is to play at a national interprovincial in all 15 of the country's golfing provinces. He has four provinces to complete that, including Auckland.
On his way to the King of the Coast final, Brown beat Tuakana August (Kawerau) 5 and 4, Pete Bremner (Mahia) on the 18th and Liam McFarlane (Omanu) 5 and 4 in the semifinals.
Higham defeated Eddie Brown junior (Patutahi) 4 and 3, Kurtis Cortesi (Tokoroa) 2 and 1 and Tini Hawea (Poverty Bay) 3 and 2.
