To top the Road to Oman Rankings requires year-long consistency, the ability to produce your best golf under pressure, the skill to close out tournaments and a resolve to better your peers over the course of a long season. Jordan Smith showed all of these, and more, in 2016.
The raw statistics are impressive enough: 22 tournaments, 18 cuts made, eight top tens, six top fives, two victories, €239,985 won in prizemoney and a scoring average of 69.32.
To achieve this in his maiden season on the European Challenge Tour makes it even more extraordinary. Here is the story of Smith’s sweet ’16:
A fast start
Smith was not exactly an unknown quantity coming into the season, having topped the EuroPro Tour Order of Merit last year, but he flew under the radar at the season-opening Barclays Kenya Open, making the cut and acclimatising to his new surroundings with a top-30 finish.
He barely looked back from there as he dominated the second event of the season, the Red Sea Egyptian Challenge Presented by Hassan Allam Properties, opening with a 63 for a conclusive wire-to-wire victory. The Englishman had truly arrived.
I can’t quite get my head around it, I’m speechless – I never thought I could win on Challenge Tour this quickly
A month later and Smith might have doubled his tally at the D+D REAL Czech Challenge, where he opened with a 64 to lead but was pipped to the post by Damien Perrier, ultimately having to settle for a share of second place, which took him to the top of the Rankings for the first time. He would ultimately hold the top spot after 16 of the 27 tournaments this season.
Summertime blues
A final round of 64 at the SSE Scottish Hydro Challenge hosted by Macdonald Hotels and Resorts in June gave Smith a tied third finish but presaged, by his standards, a slight slump.
Top 20s at the next two events in Denmark and Slovakia were followed by his first missed cuts of the year at Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge and in Northern Ireland as, by his own admission, he lost his swing a bit.
I missed two cuts in a row but got to work with my coach on a couple of technical things – now it’s all slotting into place
He made the cut at the Swedish Challenge hosted by Robert Karlsson, but a much-needed week off allowed Romain Langasque to overtake him at the top of the Rankings after the Vierumäki Finnish Challenge at the start of August.
Showing his class
That rest seemed to be just what Smith needed as top-ten finishes followed at his next three events, the Rolex Trophy, the Bridgestone Challenge and the Cordon Golf Open.
I’m definitely aiming to win the Road to Oman – I don’t have a number of points in mind but that’s the goal now
The last of those appeared to be the springboard for the back end of his stellar season, as for the first time he declared his intention to top the Rankings, clearly confident in his game once again.
Finishing in style
A two week break in September put the final block of six events, all of them highly lucrative, in even sharper focus, starting with the Kazakhstan Open, with the highest prizefund of the season.
Smith took the event by the scruff of the neck in Almaty, leading after rounds two and three before being blown slightly off course on a fiendish final day, ultimately finishing one shot behind winner Sam Walker.
That second place guaranteed him his European Tour status for next season, and he flew to China with the pressure off and while he did not find his best golf there, he did not need to.
However, following that fortnight he had once again lost his place at the summit after Alexander Knappe won the Hainan Open and finished runner-up at the Foshan Open, making it a genuine battle for the top spot in the Rankings with just two events to go.
Smith once again rose to the challenge, shooting four rounds in the 60s and coming from two shots back to claim his second win of the 2016 season at the Ras Al Khaimah 2016 Golf Challenge to reclaim the Road to Oman lead.
It hasn’t quite sunk in yet – I never imagined I would go on to do what I have on the Challenge Tour this year
Tears and cheers
— Challenge Tour (@Challenge_Tour) November 5, 2016
A proud mother hugs her champion son by the 18th green pic.twitter.com/10MRdKj0ZJ
The NBO Golf Classic Grand Final quickly became a lap of honour as the challenges of Ryan Fox, Knappe and Walker – the only players mathematically capable of overtaking him – fell away, and as Smith walked off the 18thto be embraced by his proud and tearful mother, he had secured a second successive Rankings win, an incredibly impressive feat from the young man. What odds a hat-trick and the Race to Dubai title next year?
