Alex Smalley was largely overlooked and disregarded during much of his first four years on the PGA Tour.
And that was just fine with the 29-year-old Wake Forest native and former Duke University golfer, who lives in Jamestown and plays out of Sedgefield Country Club.
“I don’t really like the spotlight,” said Smalley, while eating a cheeseburger last week on the patio outside the snack bar at Sedgefield. “I recognize that some of the golfing world doesn’t know who I am. I’m fine with that. I like to lay low and sneak up on people.”
Until a few weeks ago, Smalley remained somewhat unnoticed despite a terrific 2026 season that included three top 3 finishes in his last five tournaments. His lowest finish in his last seven was a tie for 21st in Houston. For the year, he’s made 14 of 15 cuts.
But Smalley blew his cover three weeks ago at the PGA Championship, bouncing back from a bad start Saturday to grab the 54-hole lead heading into the final round at Aronimink.
Finally on the front page on Sunday at Aronimink, the headlines from the Associated Press and The Athletic, among others, read: Who is Alex Smalley?
And there he was front and center, playing in the final group Sunday in a major championship. From his opening tee shot, most of his round would be broadcast on national television.
Smalley didn’t win, but he showed his mettle on the back nine, making eagle at No. 16 and a birdie at 18 to finish in a tie for second behind Aaron Rai.
“I showed some stress early. I’m sure a lot of people thought he’s going to fall out of the tournament on the front nine,” Smalley conceded. “I realized there were still some opportunities ahead. When you have a bad hole it’s easy to have things go badly. I just tried to hang in there.”
Following another slow start Sunday – for the second day in a row CBS dropped him from coverage for a few holes – he battled back into contention as most of the leaders faltered on the back nine.
With the cameras back on him, he rolled in a 25-foot eagle putt at No. 16 to pull within one stroke of Rai, who made two late birdies to seal the victory.
Then, he took a week off and practiced at Sedgefield, where he humbly accepted congratulations on the practice areas and in between bites of his cheeseburger from several members.
Will the wiry, cerebral Smalley, who stands 6-foot with only a 30-inch waist, and blasted his Sunday drive at 16 at Aronimink 349 yards, become a big Tour personality?
“I don’t know how I’ll be treated,” said Smalley, who honestly didn’t seem to care. “I haven’t been back out there yet.”
It didn’t happen after Aroninink. Not right away, anyway. A short appearance on Golf Channel and 20-minute radio stint on a Sirius radio show were the biggest post-PGA requests. He also took time to talk with officials of the Sunnehanna Amateur in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to promote a tournament he won twice during summer vacations from Duke.
When Smalley returned to the Tour last week at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, his hot play continued. Near the lead, the entire tournament, he came within a single stroke of joining a sudden-death playoff for a chance to earn his first Tour victory.
On Sunday, Smalley disappeared from CBS coverage again for several holes. But written off, he once again came back into contention.
In four tournaments in May, Smalley won nearly $3.3 million — $1.8 million from the PGA Championship. His June begins Thursday at The Memorial, Jack Nicklaus’ annual Tour stop.
Though he’s still in quest of his first PGA Tour victory, Smalley has moved up to 38th in the Official Golf World Rankings and climbed to 13th in the Tour’s FedEx Cup standings.
There’s not much flashy about Smalley – other than his ball striking. He ranks sixth on the Tour in greens in regulation.
He’s smart and humble with a very supportive family.
But a middle-of-the-pack player until March, Smalley has graduated to the Tour’s $20-million Signature Events and a guaranteed tee time in a few weeks at the U.S. Open and another in July at the British Open. Next spring, he will play in his second consecutive Masters.
So why the sudden transformation to budding star?
Staying in character, Smalley gave a simple explanation that won’t merit a weekend feature on CBS telecasts. This year, he’s spent his practice days – Tuesdays and Wednesdays – focused on tempo and timing. He takes Mondays off.
Smalley sees his instructor, Canadian Ralph Bauer, who has multiple clients on the Tour, every few weeks at Tour events.
“Obviously, playing good golf takes a lot of things,” Smalley said. “I’m not a super-technical golfer. Tempo and timing are big keys for me. I feel like when my tempo is good coming up and down with my swing, I play well. It’s when my timing gets off, that shots start going in funky directions.”
This year, Smalley hired Michael Burns as his caddie. Smalley said the former Marine has a similar personality — positive attitude and calm under pressure.
Smalley has always had good direction from his family – and followed it. Parents, Maria and Terry, each have a Ph.D. in chemistry. Alex graduated Duke with an environmental science degree and in 2019 was selected ACC Student-Athlete of the Year.
Terry worked for a pharmaceutical company in the Research Triangle. Maria eventually devoted most of her time to the family, which included Alex’s younger daughter Katie.
When Smalley as about 10 years old, his family joined Heritage Golf Club in Wake Forest. After school, he and his dad played nine holes in the late afternoon three times a week and had 9 a.m. tee times for full rounds of 18 on Saturdays and Sundays.
“I loved golf,” Smalley remembered. “When we got home after playing on the weekends, I made sure I was on the couch when the PGA Tour came on. When Tiger Woods beat Rocco Mediate in a Monday playoff at the 2007 U.S. Open, I tried to convince my parents to let me stay home from school. They didn’t let me.”
Maria Smalley traveled with him to junior events – as his “momager” she still travels with him to most Tour events and handles many off-course tasks. Terry, who attended many of Alex’s junior events, flew into Philadelphia to join the gallery before Saturday’s third round at Aronimink.
“Both my parents were instrumental in supporting me in junior golf, and getting me to tournaments,” Smalley said.
Alex and Maria stay mostly in Airbnb housing and prepare many of their meals at the home. Sometimes, Terry and agent Chris Kosiba join them.
The Smalley family moved to the Greensboro area in 2017 when Alex was at Duke because Katie wanted to pursue her dream of becoming a zookeeper by enrolling in the Zoo and Aquarium Science program at Davidson-Davie Community College.
DDCC had no on-campus student housing, and the commute from Wake Forest to Lexington was about two hours each way. So, Maria and Terry, who now works for Wake Forest University, moved to the Triad.
Though a good junior player, Smalley was a late bloomer. He credits visits to a sports psychologist during his junior year of high school with jump-starting his game.
“I saw results soon after that,” Smalley said.
“I developed a pre-shot and a post-shot routine to deal with “mind space. It’s very difficult to focus for more than 20 to 30 seconds at a time. After I hit, Michael and I try to think about something else.”
Modestly recruited as an underclassman at Wake Forest, he burst onto the radar of college coaches by winning the 2014 Carolinas Golf Association N.C. Junior Boys’ Championship at Roaring Gap Club.
By the start of his senior year of high school, he had weighed offers from N.C. State and Virginia Tech before selecting Duke, whose assistant coach T.D. Luten, now a private coach for juniors, recruited him.
Smalley enjoys telling a story of how he “almost” didn’t get into Duke.
“They didn’t flag my application as student-athlete, so I got wait-listed,” Smalley said with a smile. “I like to tell people I wouldn’t have gotten in without playing golf. I called Duke and asked, ‘Coach, what’s going on?”
At Duke, he set single-season and career scoring records and was selected as a second-team All-American by Ping and Golfweek.
But the high point of his Duke career may have been a 5 and 4 match-play rout of Texas’ Scottie Scheffler at the 2018 NCAA Championship.
Though Smalley tries to play it down, the story of his convincing victory over Scheffler gets bigger with each victory by the world’s top-ranked player.
“It was one of those days where everything was going right,” Smalley said. “Scottie didn’t play that bad — his score may have been under par. People do ask me about that.”
During summers, Smalley won back-to-back Sunnehanna Amateur titles and played on the victorious 2019 U.S. Walker Cup team at Royal Liverpool and the losing U.S. team at the Arnold Palmer Cup. He also made it to the semifinals in the North-South Amateur at Pinehurst.
Smalley qualified for the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills, shooting 3-over and missing the cut by only two shots.
After graduating from Duke, Smalley spent a few years honing his craft on various tours, including the former PGA Tour Canada. He played in only five Korn Ferry Tour events before earning his PGA Tour playing privileges by accumulating enough points in the Korn Ferry Finals.
Smalley helped secure his spot with a tie for 29th at the 2021 Wyndham Championship. Powered by birdies on the last four holes Sunday on his home course, where he could only catch a glimpse from an adjacent road during the 2020 Wyndham played during the Covid-19 pandemic, he shot 66.
A PGA Tour rookie in 2022, Smalley felt more comfortable each year while maintaining his playing status.
His initial breakthrough was a tie for 14th at last year’s Players Championship, where he was in third heading into the final round, earning a Sunday tee time with eventual winner Rory McIlroy.
Though McIlroy didn’t talk to him, Smalley experienced the big galleries that followed the Irish star during his charge to victory.
Smalley shot 76 at TPC Sawgrass in the final round. He plumetted down the leaderboard after his tee shot to the infamous 17th bounced off the island green leading to double-bogey, and a wayward shot at 18 found water, resulting in bogey.
“That was big for my confidence,” Smalley said. “I hung in there most of the day and was able to control my emotions. I knew I could compete against the best players out there. When you have a few good results, you gain some momentum and you know you can do it.”
Despite his success and his enhanced bank account, Smalley wants to stay close to his family rather than move to popular player enclaves such as Palm Beach County, Orlando, Dallas or Sea Island, Georgia. He has a girlfriend in Durham but likes to keep some of his personal live private.
“Once I graduated, I kind of stuck around,” he said. “I grew up North Carolina, so North Carolina feels like home.”