Back in March, Austin Smotherman entered the Cognizant Championship on Sunday on the precipice of his dream. Holding the 54-hole lead in a PGA Tour event for the first time in his career, the then 31-year-old faced the most terrifying round of his career. He navigated PGA National pretty well that Sunday, but finished T2 as Nico Echavarria claimed the title after Shane Lowry imploded. But after tapping to close his day, Smotherman he looked like a man who had just won.
Because he knew it was a necessary step to get to where he wanted to go.
“That was just my first really big pedestal,” Smotherman said that Sunday. “Kind of had a top 5 in the Mexican Open at Vidanta a couple of years ago, and never really had the same kind of moments down the stretch … This is going to be a week that I always look back on.”
That led to Smotherman entering his first Signature Event at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He withdrew from Bay Hill with an injury, but posted a T13 at the Players the following week. But the breakthrough never came, as the rest of Smotherman’s season was filled with missed cuts and mediocre finishes. He finished 80th in the FedEx Cup standings and missed the playoffs, but the feeling that he was close remains.
That brought him to this week at the Utah Bank Championshiphis 100th PGA Tour career begins, where everything at last click
He opened with a 63 at Black Desert Resort and followed it up with a 62 to take the weekend lead. A 6-under 65 Saturday gave him his second 54-hole career and another shot at the hardest thing in professional golf: closing out your first win.
“It would just be a lifelong dream come true,” Smotherman said Saturday about the possibility of doing the job.
But achieving your dreams is never an easy task. It’s a scary prospect that can turn your legs to jelly and numb your hands. Being so close to the one thing you’ve always wanted, the thing you’ve worked your whole life to get, can be paralyzing.
Austin Smotherman knew what to expect because he faced him in March at PGA National.
He began Sunday’s final round with a one-shot lead over Doug Ghim, but quickly calmed his nerves with birdies at 1, 4 and 5 to extend his lead. Smotherman then made seven straight pars before reality set in, and the final stretch of her dreams began to lengthen as nerves tightened. He found the fairway on the par-4 13th, but missed his second shot into the lip of a greenside bunker. His third shot went just 24 feet and landed in another greenside bunker. He finally made a double bogey, and his lead dwindled from three to one.
But Smotherman knew there were holes to be made. He rebounded with a birdie on the drivable par-4 14th and another on 16. A bogey at 17 cut his lead over Ghim to two, but once Smotherman found the fairway at the par-5 18th, he knew he had finally made it.
His second shot landed short of the green, allowing him to two-putt for birdie to finish at 26 under and claim his first PGA Tour title. When Smotherman hit his final putt, he hugged his caddy and Ghim before hugging his wife on the green. Then, when Austin Smotherman was asked to put it all into words, the emotions began to flow – the emotions of a 10-year journey that saw him spend two years on the PGA Tour Latin America, two more on the Korn Ferry Tour and make 100 starts on the PGA Tour before finally becoming a champion.
“Oh my god,” a wide-eyed Smotherman told Golf Channel’s Amy Rogers after his win. “Just hit pretty good (today), hit early early to take some pressure off. … Oh my gosh, we won on the PGA Tour. It’s crazy.
“Gosh… we did it! Let’s go!” Smotherman shouted at the end of his interview.
An hour later, with the trophy next to him, the PGA Tour’s newest champion looked back on the long road he traveled from SMU to the moment it happened Sunday in Utah. He talked about the “learning curves” he faced at every level of professional golf and how this moment could lead to even more. But talking about the next 100 principles or a next title can wait. For Austin Smotherman, Sunday was all about how far he’s come, what he’s learned and how he finally turned longtime golf dreams into reality.
“One hundred starts here is an incredible number, just to have 100 starts,” Smotherman said. “But even more, to play professional golf now for 10 years, to travel the world, to have the support I had, it’s quite unreal to lift a trophy at the highest level. It’s something we’ve dreamed about since I was a kid. Here we are.”
Ten years and many professional scars later, Austin Smotherman has finally reached his destination because he always believed he would get there. Some dreams just take time.
