Alex Smalley’s wild ride from Wyndham invite to TOUR card

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Alex Smalley’s life changed as he was about to hit his approach shot to Sedgefield Country Club’s ninth green. He just didn’t know it yet.

It was March of last year, and he was playing 18 holes at his home course with Mark Brazil, executive director of the Wyndham Championship, and two of the tournament’s sponsors.

As Brazil pretended to take a phone call, the other two men started talking about the PGA TOUR’s Regular Season finale. Had Smalley ever thought about playing in the TOUR’s annual stop at Sedgefield?

Of course he had. In fact, he told them he’d tried before, missing a playoff at the Monday qualifier by a shot the summer after he’d graduated from nearby Duke University.

“You know there’s an open spot this year,” one of the sponsors told him, pausing for effect before adding firmly, “For you.” Smalley stepped away from the ball as he digested the unexpected, and welcomed, news.

“He was kind of bewildered by it,” Brazil said last week, laughing as he remembered the scene he filmed on his phone. “… And I go, ‘Yeah, it’s true. Are you going to say yes or are you just going to stand there?’ It was a great moment.”

The Wyndham Championship is a home game for Smalley, who has lived in Greensboro since 2017 and been a member at Sedgefield since 2020, but it’s special for another reason. It’s also where Smalley, thanks to that sponsor exemption from Brazil, authored the clutch performance that ultimately moved him from the world of Monday qualifiers and mini-tours and onto the PGA TOUR.

It’s a reminder that each week on TOUR can be a life-changing one, even for players who aren’t hoisting the trophy on Sunday.

Smalley returns to Sedgefield a year later in the midst of a successful rookie season. He's ranked 63rd in the FedExCup, assured of keeping his TOUR card for next season and currently inside the cut line to make the BMW Championship, the second of three FedExCup Playoffs events. His season has included a runner-up at the Corales Puntacana Championship – another event that proved crucial to his career – and top-10s at the Genesis Scottish Open (T10) and Mexico Open (T6).

Smalley turned pro in late 2019 after a successful amateur career. He represented the United States at that year’s Walker Cup, was medalist at the 2016 U.S. Amateur and in 2018 and ’19 became the first player since Rickie Fowler to win the prestigious Sunnehanna Amateur in consecutive years. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted his first full year as a pro, however, and left Smalley in search of places to play.

His path to the TOUR became clearer after receiving a sponsor exemption into the Corales event in September 2020 and finishing T14. He’d play Monday qualifiers and keep writing letters to tournament directors in search of sponsor exemptions. If he kept playing well and amassing points, he might be able qualify for the Korn Ferry Tour finals and compete for a TOUR card.

“And so we went that route pretty aggressively for the rest of the fall and the good portion of the next rest of the year,” Smalley said.

Jay Overton – to whom Smalley says he also owes a huge debt of gratitude – came through with another invitation when the Corales Puntacana Championship was played again in March 2021. Again, Smalley did not disappoint, tying for 22nd to earn more points. By now, Brazil had taken notice.

He rarely gives out invitations four months in advance and he’d never invited a Sedgefield member to the Wyndham, in part because its vital position as the final event of the Regular Season makes each spot in the field extremely valuable.

“But this kid can play,” he said.

Smalley made another cut after Monday qualifying for the John Deere Classic (T47). When he teed it up at the Wyndham Championship, Smalley figured he needed a top-40 finish to qualify for the Korn Ferry Tour Finals.

That week in Greensboro started out inauspiciously, with Smalley three-putting two of his first three holes. He fought back to shoot 68, then fired a bogey-free 64 to easily make the cut. But he entered Sunday with no margin for error after shooting 2-over 72 in the third round.

That final round was up and down, but with four holes standing between him and the KFT Finals, Smalley delivered. He birdied the final four holes – all of them on putts of 15 feet or less – to finish T29 and elicit tears of joy from his family. Looking back, he estimates that even two birdies in his final four holes would’ve left him one point short of his goal.

“He wasn't intimidated by it at all,” Smalley’s mom Maria said. “I actually remind him of that a lot. I'm just like, okay, close it -- just like you did at the Wyndham.”

Of course, the performance at Wyndham wouldn’t have meant much if he didn’t take advantage of it. But a fourth-place finish at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship ensured his spot on the PGA TOUR this season.

“I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Wyndham Championship, and Bobby Long and Mark Brazil, for giving me a chance to prove myself,” Smalley said. “I certainly wouldn't have my TOUR card right now if it wasn't for them.”

Brazil says Smalley’s successful quest last year is “one heck of a story. It’s guts and determination and he's a grinder. He's got a lot of grit to him.”

Smalley hides it under a gentle, soft-spoken demeanor, however. He’s thoughtful and smart, graduating Duke with an environmental science degree (and a 3.6 grade-point average to go along with his 71.3 scoring average). Although he was born in Rochester, New York, he moved to the Raleigh area when he was 2 and considers himself “100% North Carolinian.” His family, which includes a younger sister Katie who is studying to become a zookeeper, is close-knit, the kind that gathered at 8 p.m. each night to watch their favorite movies or TV shows together and still loves going to DisneyWorld.

“I grew up on those (Disney) movies and just something about them that brings a sense of joy to me, just the songs and the soundtracks,” Smalley said. “We play this game every night at dinner, we have the Disney app, and we can see how long the wait times are at rides. And my sister pulls up the map and she's like, okay, how long do you think the line is at this ride?”

His grandmother gave Smalley a set of plastic clubs when he was a toddler, and his mother remembers him hitting balls in his snowsuit in the winter. As Smalley grew older, he played baseball and was on a travel hockey team, but he learned to love golf when he and his dad, Terry, a biochemistry professor who was once a single-digit handicapper, hit the course on the weekends.

“We would have a cart and I would hit the ball and run after it and my dad was like, Alex, we have a cart, we can ride to go get the ball,” Smalley said with a smile. “But he said I would always run after it.”

When he was 8 or 9, Smalley boldly announced to his mother that he was going to play on the PGA TOUR one day. The two remember the day distinctly, and Smalley is still amazed that he’s doing what he envisioned at that young age.

“It's pretty crazy to think about, but this sport has been a huge part of my life for 15 of the 25 years that I've been alive,” he said. “So, it's been quite the ride so far and hopefully I have a number of years left.”

He took lessons for several years until the pro suggested Smalley – who shot 60 in a junior club championship and became seasoned while playing in the winter national junior series in Pinehurst -- find another teacher with more experience working with highly talented players. Since graduating from Duke, Smalley has been seeing short game guru David Orr, who is based at Pine Needles, but still doesn’t have a swing coach.

That said, his parents, who caddied for him extensively during his junior, amateur and early pro career, are a good sounding board when things go awry. The couple, both scientists who have their doctorates, know his tendencies and body language and often can recognize when there is what they call “drift” even when he can’t feel it. They help their son stay focused and not get bogged down with the kind of things he can’t control, which the family has dubbed “lights and music.”

Smalley’s mom, an analytical chemist by training, has also kept a close watch on his stats since his junior days, helping to identify areas for improvement.

“She loves looking up stats like dude, you need to do better on this -- 25th on the PGA TOUR is this in putting and you're this and you need to make more of your 10- to 15-footers,” Smalley said, laughing. His career, Maria said, is like a family business.

“We’re all one big team and it works,” she said.

Smalley still lives at home – yes, he knows it’s a little “weird” for a PGA TOUR player to say – but the hectic schedule that has seen him play in six different countries in the past year hasn’t allowed much time to look for a place of his own. As for a welcome-to-the TOUR moment? Well, it’s been a more gradual process for the man whose first two events were a baptism-by-fire when he qualified for the 2017 U.S. Open as an amateur and the 2020 Waste Management Phoenix Open.

Gone are the days of Monday qualifiers and last-minute tee times, however. A lot has changed in a year.

“It's been crazy,” he said, “but I wouldn't change it for anything because it's been one heck of a ride.”