Idaho Builder Nate Smith Surprises at U.S. Amateur
SAN FRANCISCO – Will the real Nathan Smith please stand up.
While U.S. Walker Cup captain Nathan Smith observes the action this week at Olympic Club, another Nathan Smith is putting on quite a show. Nate Smith, a 42-year-old home builder from Tetonia, Idaho, fired back-to-back 1-under 69s on Olympic’s Lake and Ocean courses to breeze into match play as the seventh seed.
“I still have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Smith said with a laugh. “I didn’t have any expectations.”
Why would he? While his competitors went through carefully crafted pre-round routines before slipping into their NIL-logoed apparel, Smith woke up early before his afternoon tee time to order roofing materials and dial into a job site.
“I’m fully aware that I’m a full-time home builder, and these guys are dedicating their lives to the game and they’re some of the best amateurs in the world,” Smith said. “I used to be at one point; not anymore, but maybe I still am, who knows?”
Smith was indeed once a hotshot amateur. A product of municipal golf from Santa Cruz, less than two hours south of San Francisco, he played four years at Duke where he was a two-time All-American before turning professional in 2006. He traveled the Hooters Tour with fellow Blue Devil Kevin Streelman, won there, and then won again on the then-called Nationwide Tour in 2010. That year, he narrowly missed keeping his card by falling out of the top 25 at the tour’s season finale, though later earned his PGA Tour card through Q-School.
But after just one season—making $154,814 on eight of 24 cuts without a single top-25 finish—Smith lost his card. Two years later, he quit competitive golf following left-knee surgery and headed to graduate school at College of Charleston, where he earned his M.B.A. and met his wife, Amra.
“I had felt like I’d lost a lot stuff in my life, and I just wanted to turn the page,” Smith said.
The couple moved to Idaho, where Smith built his construction business. By 2022, the competitive itch returned, so he applied to have his amateur status reinstated and started playing local events, eventually moving to state and national tournaments. He’s since won the 2024 Idaho Amateur and the Snedeker Memorial earlier this year, made a run to the Round of 16 at the 2023 U.S. Mid-Amateur, and tied for fourth at the Huddleston Cup. He’s qualified for three of the last four U.S. Amateurs—three times as many as he played during his first amateur stint.
“I still love the game, and I love competing; I just didn’t like the way I felt playing professional golf,” Smith said. “I have a much greater appreciation now for this game, which has given me everything in a lot of ways. I’m just so blessed to be here competing.”
Smith knows golf’s unpredictability firsthand. He recently missed U.S. Mid-Amateur qualifying by a single shot, and now he’s into the knockout stage at Olympic Club—a course he’d occasionally play as a teenager when lucky enough to score an invite.
He finds himself doing math often these days, head spinning when he realizes some of his peers this week, including 16-year-old Miles Russell (who finished just two shots ahead of Smith in stroke play), were born after Smith graduated college.
Speaking of unlikely scenarios, Smith’s odds of making next month’s Walker Cup team at Cypress Point seemed astronomical before this week. But with the two main contenders for the one mid-amateur berth—Stewart Hagestad and Evan Beck—missing the cut, perhaps the door has opened for Smith, the lone 25-and-older competitor left in the championship, to force his way onto the other Nathan Smith’s team.
The Smiths are familiar with each other. When the Darrell Survey comes around each year, surveyors get confused seeing “Nathan Smith” with a completely different bag of clubs. “Wrong guy,” Nate tells them, though he jokes he wishes he had four U.S. Mid-Amateur titles and three Walker Cup appearances under his belt.
“I gave him Nathan a while ago,” Nate explained. “That’s exactly why I did it because we kept getting confused. I really respect Nathan and what he’s accomplished in the mid-am game, and he’s older than me and he has seniority, so he got to keep Nathan.”
Back in 2004, both Smiths attended the Walker Cup practice session ahead of the 2005 event at Chicago Golf Club. During the trip, captain Bob Lewis paired the Smiths against Brian Harman and Roberto Castro at Old Memorial.
“Nate and Nate; it was the best!” Smith said with a smile.
Now, 21 years later, could there be a Nathan Smith reunion at Cypress?
“I’ve been politicking with him a little bit,” Smith said. “If I were to win, maybe there’d be an argument for it…”
That’s when Smith was interrupted.
A win, as he’s then informed, would earn him an automatic spot.
