The Old-Hybrid Guy Just Won Again
I've now written about Austin Smotherman twice this month, and I need to be honest with you: the first time, I wrote about him because he won a PGA Tour event with a seven-year-old hybrid in the bag. The second time, I wrote about the tournament he was about to play, because the Butterfield Bermuda Championship is the windiest stop on the PGA Tour and I wanted a wind-playbook post out of it. On Monday morning, Smotherman went out and won that tournament in a playoff. At this point I either have to apologize to the man for using him as content, or start taking credit for his career. I'm choosing to take a little credit.
Here's what actually happened in Bermuda, because it's better than anything I could have scripted. The wind got so bad that the PGA Tour cancelled the final round entirely. The tournament was cut to 54 holes, and Smotherman and Seamus Power finished tied at 16-under-par after three rounds. So on Monday morning they went back out to Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton, Bermuda, for a sudden-death playoff — and they played the same hole, the par-3 16th, over and over again.
Both players made par on the first two playoff holes. On the third trip to the 16th, Smotherman hit an 8-iron to about 15 feet and two-putted for par. Power found the left rough off the tee and missed his par putt. That was it. Smotherman's second PGA Tour win in three weeks, decided by a par, on a hole they'd already played twice that morning, in wind still gusting to 25 mph.
The numbers around the win are worth knowing, because they explain why this one mattered so much more than a regular fall-series trophy. Smotherman took home $1.08 million and 500 FedExCup points, which moved him up to 51st in the FedExCup Fall standings. That gets him into the first two Signature Events of 2027 — the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational at Riviera, both $20 million purses. His win in Utah already had him exempt through 2028; this one extends that through 2029. And for Power, the runner-up finish was nearly as valuable: he came into the week ranked 103rd, and the top 100 keep full status. His second-place finish moved him to 68th. He lost the playoff and still got exactly what he came for.
Now here's the part that actually matters to golfers like us, because Smotherman is not a superstar story. He's a grinder story. He waited 100 PGA Tour events for his first win. From 2016 through 2024 he posted just three top-10 finishes in 77 starts. He went back to the Korn Ferry Tour twice. Then he won in Utah three weeks ago, and now he's won again — his second victory came just 57 holes after his first, if you count the three playoff holes. Asked about it afterward, he admitted his hands were shaking over the winning putt and said, "Stop it, stop it. That's so cool." Then he announced the celebration plan: family, friends, and a taco truck.
That's a guy I recognize. That's basically every mid-handicapper I know, except he does it for a living and we do it on Saturdays.
So what do I actually take from this win into my own game? Four things, and none of them cost money.
First: par is a great score when it's blowing. I wrote this in my wind-playbook post last week and then watched a PGA Tour playoff prove it: nobody birdied their way to this trophy. Both playoff holes that mattered were won with pars. Mid-handicappers like me spend windy rounds furious that we're not scoring, chasing birdies that aren't there, and then compounding it with doubles. Smotherman and Power played three extra holes and neither one made a birdie. In the wind, par is not settling. Par is the plan.
Second: the miss matters more than the shot. Port Royal's 16th is a famous trap of a par-3: miss left and you're in water and unpleasantness, as one commentator put it during the playoff. Power missed left on the deciding hole and that was the tournament. Smotherman missed right, on the safe side, and two-putted for the win. Every time I stand on a par-3 with trouble on one side, I tell myself to aim at the fat side of the green and accept a 30-footer. Then I aim at the pin anyway. I'm going to stop doing that. The fat side is where trophies live.
Third: boring golf wins tournaments. Smotherman didn't win Bermuda with heroics. He won it by keeping the ball in play for 57 holes in brutal wind while other players leaked shots. There's a stat from his Utah win that stuck with me too — he's not a bomber or a highlight machine, he's a fairways-and-greens guy who finally stopped getting in his own way. My blow-up holes always come from the same place: trying to hit a shot I don't own. The boring shot I do own would have saved me two strokes a round this year, easy.
Fourth, and my favorite: the old hybrid guy did it again. I wrote on October 12 that Smotherman won the Bank of Utah Championship with a 2020 TaylorMade SIM Max hybrid in the bag — a six-year-old club at a time when the industry wants you to believe last year's model is obsolete. Three weeks later, the same guy, presumably the same bag philosophy, won again. Nobody is saying a 2020 hybrid is magic. But two wins in three weeks from a player using old equipment is a pretty good answer to the question I get asked at every golf shop: "Should I upgrade?" The answer is still: only if the new club fixes a specific problem your current club causes. Otherwise, you're buying a feeling, not a score.
Once his full winning-bag list came out, I went through what a mid-handicapper should actually steal from Smotherman's Bermuda bag.
My own windy-round checklist, updated after watching Bermuda, looks like this now: club up and swing at 80 percent, because a smooth 7-iron beats a ripped 8-iron in a crosswind every time. Pick one knockdown shot and actually practice it instead of just reading about it. On par-3s, pick the fat side before I pick the club. And stop keeping score against the course conditions — in 40 mph wind, a bogey is not a failure, it's weather.
Both Smotherman and Power have already withdrawn from this week's VidantaWorld Mexico Open, which starts Thursday — a Monday finish takes it out of you, and he's earned a week of tacos. I'll be watching to see if the fall's hottest player can make it three in a row, but honestly, he's already given me everything I needed from this season: proof that patience, old clubs, and boring pars are a legitimate way to play this game. Even at the highest level. Especially at the highest level.
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