Smotherman Fires Sizzling 62 to Take Early Lead at Cognizant Classic
Austin Smotherman tied his career-best round with a blistering 9-under 62 Thursday to grab the early lead at the Cognizant Classic at PGA National.
It’s a stunning turnaround for Smotherman at this venue. His only previous appearance here in 2022 was forgettable – a 70-76 performance that saw him miss the cut by four shots.
“It was a pretty easy round,” Smotherman said, “on a golf course that shouldn’t be this easy.”
Smotherman became just the seventh player to shoot 62 or better at PGA National. His round featured a remarkable stretch of six consecutive birdies on holes 7 through 12, capped by a tap-in birdie at the par-5 18th.
This isn’t his first time leading after 18 holes – he held the first-round lead at the 2023 Mexico Open – but he’s still seeking his first win in 81 PGA Tour starts.
What’s different this week? Smotherman is putting without a line on his ball.
“Trying to just be a little bit more freeing with the stroke, be an artist on the greens,” he explained. “See the line, kind of let it just be external, look at the hole, see where I want it to go in and just trust that I’m pretty good at just aiming in the general vicinity that needs to happen.”
Nico Echavarria posted a 63 in the morning wave, while Taylor Moore and Jackson Suber were five shots back with 67s. With winds picking up in the afternoon, Smotherman’s lead looked secure.
Is PGA National Getting Too Soft?
Smotherman’s low score highlights a talking point this week: PGA National isn’t playing as tough as it once did.
The course is overseeded – rye grass added to the Bermuda base – making it both more visually appealing and significantly softer. The results speak for themselves. Mark Wilson won the tournament’s first edition here at just 5-under, and 11 of the first 14 champions finished under 10-under par. The last five winners? 12-under, 10-under, 14-under, 17-under and 19-under.
Billy Horschel, who shot 69 Thursday, created a stir when he addressed the overseeding issue on social media Wednesday. He clarified his position after his round.
“This is a really good golf course,” Horschel said. “It’s a very fair golf course. When it blows hard, it’s a challenge, and when it’s sort of benign like it is today, it’s gettable. A few years ago the rough was longer and then they started cutting it down and then they overseeded the golf course.”
He understands the balancing act between challenge and aesthetics.
“I think the Tour gets a bad rap, and it’s not anything against the owners of PGA National. I understand where they would want to overseed. People want it to look pretty on TV, and if it looks pretty on TV, maybe people will want to come play it.”
But there’s clearly a part of Horschel that misses the PGA National that had more teeth.
“I understand we are using a golf course that we don’t own a lot of times, and sometimes we’re at the discretion of what the owner wants to do,” he added. “This isn’t just PGA National; it goes to a lot of courses that we play throughout the years.”
