In his PGA TOUR career, 29-year-old Alex Smalley has never had a 54-hole lead.
Until now.
After a bumpy front nine of 2-over 37 in Round 3 of the 108th PGA Championship at Aronimink on Saturday, Smalley caught fire on the inward nine. With a 4-under 31, which included three birdies in the last four holes, Smalley carded a 2-under 68 and at 6-under 204 total he will take a two-stroke lead into the final round.
“The wind was certainly up when we first started the round,” said Smalley, who has top-20 finishes in each of his last four starts. “I mean, it was playing fairly difficult… It certainly wasn't as easy as some of the guys had it in the morning when the wind wasn't as strong. I was able to hit a few more fairways on the back nine, was able to take care of some of the scorable holes, I guess, if you want to call them that, but the wind died down a little bit on the back nine.”
The two-shot cushion is nice, but likely won’t feel all that comfortable considering a whopping 22 players are within four shots of the lead and 30 are within five. That includes major winners Jon Rahm at 4 under, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and Patrick Reed at 3 under, Justin Rose, Martin Kaymer, Cam Smith and Hideki Matsuyama at 2 under and Brooks Koepka and defending PGA champ Scottie Scheffler at 1 under.
“It's a jam-packed leaderboard,” said Schauffele, the 2024 PGA Champion. “Come tomorrow, there's going to be 25, 30 guys within striking distance with 9 to 10 holes to play. It's going to be great to watch as a fan, but as a player, it's pretty stressful, and you've really got to lock in. So if I can lean back on any experience I have, I will.”
Smalley shared the 36-hole lead at 4 under with Maverick McNealy. Early on Saturday, it looked like he might fade quickly with three bogeys in his first four holes. While Smalley was struggling, it seemed everyone else was headed in the right direction on Moving Day.
Conditions Saturday morning were the best they’ve been all week. The temperature was up, the wind was down, hole locations were accessible and birdies were flying.
But shortly before Smalley and McNealy teed off, the wind started to kick up again and Aronimink’s teeth sharpened.
“I had watched the coverage this morning before I arrived on property and saw there were scores out there, certainly at the beginning part of the golf course,” Smalley said. “Saw a lot of birdies being made. Then by the time that I teed off, the wind had picked up, and it became very difficult to hit a fairway, hit a green, even make a three- or four-footer. I hit a couple wayward shots early, didn't make it easy on myself. Left myself a lot of par putts of some significant length.”
Smalley said his 14-foot, par-saving putt on the sixth hole helped him settle down.
“I just try to keep putting one foot in front of the other and just tried to regain my tempo and rhythm in my golf swing because, when that gets off some, I can start hitting it a little wayward,” he said. “So I just tried to focus in on that. Just tried to play smart and was able to get some back on the back nine.”
Smalley was outstanding on the back nine. It started with a birdie on the par-4 10th, the most difficult hole on the course this week, when he rolled in a 15-footer. He had birdies on 13 (5-foot putt), 15 (27-foot putt), 16 (4-footer) and then bounced back from a bogey on No. 17 to birdie No. 18 on a putt from 14 feet.
After the round, Smalley said he’s dreamed of winning on the PGA TOUR since he was a kid. With the 54-hole lead in a major, he’s trying not to get ahead of himself.
“I recognize that it's on a stage that's a little bit larger than most other Tour events,” he said. “I'm trying to downplay that as much as I possibly can just to make it seem like any other golf tournament, because essentially that's all it really is.”
In four of the last five PGA Championships, the eventual winner was leading (either tied or outright) at the end of the third round. That’s good news for Smalley.
And there’s also this…
“I obviously dreamed of this as a kid, and it's funny, it's the Wanamaker trophy, and when I was in college, I stayed in the Wanamaker dorm for three years,” Smalley said. “So my parents and I have been joking that maybe this would be a tournament that I would win just because of that kind of fact. That's just kind of something that we've joked about even before I made it out here. It would be pretty cool to actually pull it out tomorrow.”
Wouldn’t that be something?
