A PGA Tour pro has a chance to do something this week Austin Championship 2026 that even number 1 world Scottie Scheffler he didn’t.
Let’s talk about it Austin Smotherman and his hunt for an improbable third straight PGA Tour win in Austin.
Despite that torrid streak of play, there’s one thing Smotherman still lacks: an invite to the 2027 Masters.
Austin Smotherman sees third win in a row, Masters invites to Austin
Smotherman he picked up his first PGA Tour win at the Utah Bank Championship in early October. It was a long time for the 32-year-old veteran. It won’t be long until his next one.
Just three weeks later, and in his next start, Smotherman defeated Seamus Power in a playoff. to win the Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
It’s been a lot for the undefeated pro to digest in a short amount of time, as he explained in his press conference at the Austin Championship this week.
“Without a doubt. I mean, things change. We kind of look at the next one, but everything happened so fast. I try to let things go a little bit,” Smotherman said on Wednesday. “I think that’s how Scottie feels all the time, which is kind of a good feeling.”
He also revealed that many people have asked him why he even bothered to play this week, given his recent success. The first reasons, the Texas native said, were personal.
“These last two weeks everybody’s been asking, ‘Oh, why are you playing, what’s going to happen?'” Smotherman said. “But like you said, home state event, playing here in Austin, an easy, easy week to stay here at the Omni on top of that. The family is headed up from Dallas now, they’ll be there for dinner.”
But there’s another reason you’d be wise to steer clear this week. Despite his heroic efforts this fall, he still hasn’t qualified for the Masters.
In the past, each PGA Tour victory earned the winner a spot in the following year’s Masters. But last year, Augusta National has changed its rules and will no longer award a Master’s invitation to the winners of FedEx Fall Series events.
Unfortunately for Smotherman, his recent wins were FedEx Fall events. They followed the regular season of the Tour, where the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings at the end of the playoffs they also receive a Masters invitation. Smotherman finished the regular season in 80th. There is another way for him to book his ticket to Augusta in 2026: finish the year in the top 50 in the official world golf ranking.
Incredibly, after his two wins, Smotherman is at 51st in the OWGRmaking him the official bubble boy of the moment. If he were to win this week, Smotherman would definitely move into the top 50 and finally earn his invitation to Masters 2027. If he missed the cut, then things would start to get awkward. The fall season ends next week in Georgia, which Smotherman could take quietly in the event that his finish in Austin closes him to OWGR top 50. We will find out in the next few days.
A win in Austin would also make some history for Smotherman, making him the first Tour player in nine years to win three consecutive starts. Not even Scheffler has made this feat in recent years. The last player to do it was Dustin Johnson back in 2017.
So instead of taking time off, Smotherman revealed that he and his team are going to “ride as high as we are.” He is also aware of how rare it is to win three tournaments in a row. But that didn’t lower his expectations for this week.
“The expectations are there to win three times in a row,” Smotherman said. “Even getting the chance is pretty awesome, but we’ll see, yeah.”
