Patience is perhaps the most overused word in golf but for Jordan Smith it is so much more than a cliché.
The Englishman will tee it up this week in his first Signature Event on the PGA TOUR as he takes the next step on a golfing journey that has seen him ride waves much like the ones that will lap up at Hilton Head Island during the RBC Heritage.
His rise through the ranks was initially rapid, winning the EuroPro Tour Order of Merit and Road to Mallorca en route to a win in his rookie DP World Tour season but he would claim just one more victory over the next eight years.
An admission that “maybe I haven’t won as many tournaments as people think” is perhaps the fairest marker for a career that has so far seen a consistency that is the envy of most, while not always delivering on that stellar start.
But after securing dual membership via the Race to Dubai last season and having made an excellent start to life on the PGA TOUR, maybe Smith’s best times are yet to come.
When we catch up with the 33-year-old, he is back in the UK as the regular DP World Tour and PGA TOUR schedules take a break for the Masters Tournament, an event where fellow class of 2025 dual members Marco Penge, Kristoffer Reitan and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen all made their debuts.
For Smith, who has played in the other three Majors including a top ten on debut at the US PGA Championship in 2017, a trip down Magnolia Lane is very much on the radar.
“I definitely know that it can be done, it’s just a matter of time,” he tells the DP World Tour. “Get those better results under my belt and move up the World Rankings and hopefully next year is our year.
“It’s probably the closest we’ve been this year but not quite close enough. It will definitely happen, it’s just a matter of time.”
That confidence is entirely merited, with Smith already around the edges of the top 50 on the Official World Golf Ranking and playing at Harbour Town this week thanks to a top three finish at the Valspar Championship last month.
A habitual presence near the top of the DP World Tour statistics for driving accuracy and greens in regulation, it is perhaps no surprise that his game has travelled and Smith admits the changes he has faced since moving to Orlando and settling at the Isleworth Golf and Country Club have been more off the course than on it.
“I’ve played on the DP World Tour for nine seasons, I’ve got to know the staff, the players, the venues, the courses and how everything works,” he says.
“Now everything has completely changed on a new tour where I may know a good handful of players but I don’t really know how things work over there, I don’t really know any of the staff or any of the venues.
“I think that’s been the biggest adjustment, just getting used to a lot of new things, new faces and new golf courses.”
Having the support of girlfriend Sammy, who has moved to the United States with him, has “made a world of difference”, while Smith sees plenty of familiar faces inside the ropes as well.
Along with his cohorts from the class of 2025, Smith is able to take some advice from players long familiar with plying their trade on the other side of the Atlantic.
“I try and play practice rounds with Marco and John Parry and I get on with Haotong Li so we try and play practice rounds together as well. It’s nice having those guys around and socialising with those,” he says.
“It’s also nice to have Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose to fall back on. I played a couple of practice rounds with Tommy at THE PLAYERS which was really nice just to see how he saw different holes and a bit of experience there.
“It’s nice to have those guys there that if you do need anything, you can go up and talk to them, even if it’s just general chit-chat rather than golf stuff, it’s nice to have that support there.”
Smith, Penge, Parry and fellow dual member Dan Brown are all PGA TOUR rookies in 2026 but all at some stage of their careers played not only on the DP World Tour but the HotelPlanner Tour and satellite EuroPro Tour.
And Smith believes without that grounding he may not be where he is today, having had the option to go to college in the US but chosen to stay within the amateur set-up playing for his country around the world.
“It was massive for me, it was the right route that I needed to take to get to where I am today,” he says. “Without those satellite tours us guys wouldn’t be where we are now.
“It’s just a way of learning how to cope with playing for huge amounts of money and playing in front of cameras and crowds and travelling around and living out of a suitcase and a hotel. You get to learn what it is like to be a pro golfer to start with so that is sort of where us guys have learned our trade and got in a bit of experience through that and then moved our way up through the tours.
“I know a lot of guys go to Qualifying School and turn pro straight away and go out to the main tour but you see those guys struggle because they just don’t know what it is like to play as a professional golfer with a lot of stuff on the line, with keeping cards and making money and playing in front of huge crowds.”
For Smith, the steps up seemed to come easily, with those two Rankings wins and then a maiden DP World Tour victory at the 2017 Porsche European Open.
He would finish in the top 50 on the Race to Dubai in 2018 and 2019 and just outside in the Covid-affected schedules of 2020 and 2021, with ten top tens coming across those four seasons.
He would finish second twice in as many months at the start of 2022 but with the second win proving elusive, doubt was beginning to creep in.
When victory did come, it came in record-breaking style at 30 under at the Portugal Masters. After claiming five wins on the EuroPro, HotelPlanner and DP World Tours in under two years, he had waited five years and three months for his next.
I have learned from previous years of missing out and all that heartache. I feel like I’m a much mentally stronger person
“It was all such a quick rise,” he says. “Because everything was still brand new to me I didn’t have any mental scars, I didn’t have any previous bad thoughts and it was all just a learning curve at the time. That’s why the younger guys take everything in their stride and come firing out of the blocks.
“Eventually it wasn’t going to keep on going up, it was going to plateau out a bit and the longer it went on without winning again I probably got in my own head and did think if it was ever going to happen again.
“Because I didn’t continue on that rise, it did play on my mind a little bit but I think I’ve learned a lot from those experiences. Maybe I haven’t won as many tournaments as people think but I wouldn’t be where I am today necessarily if I had won more tournaments. It’s all been a learning curve and still is.
“The longer it went on without winning for the second time it did get quite frustrating. I had a lot of close calls and I think from those close calls I was beating myself up a little bit by thinking that I wasn’t good enough to do it again.
“But I think that does make you a lot stronger. If I am in those situations now I have learned from previous years of missing out and all that heartache. I feel like I’m a much mentally stronger person and in those situations, I’d be able to thrive.
“I knew eventually it was going to happen, I just didn’t think it would take five years but these things happen. It’s not easy winning out on any tour. It was just a case of keeping my head down and trying to improve in certain areas which I managed to do and that was the difference. It was about learning from those past experiences to make me a batter golfer and more mentally strong.”
2022 proved to be his best season to date with a 12th-placed finish on the Race to Dubai – had dual membership been available via the Rankings, he would have easily secured it.
He was close to dual membership in 2023 but in 2024 the margins became as fine as they could be, with Smith missing out by 10.43 points on the Rankings – literally one shot.
Had Smith not sent his tee shot right on the 18th hole on Sunday at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship, or had he made the 22-footer that he still managed to leave himself for birdie, we could be telling a different story.
But as has been the case throughout Smith’s career, timing and patience are everything, and he reveals it may have been a blessing that he did not take the final card.
“It was gutting to miss out in 2024... but at the time I don’t think I was ready to get out to the PGA TOUR but I was definitely ready to get out there in 2025 so it was nice to finally do it,” he said.
“If I would have done it in 2024 I would have been able to manage a year on the PGA TOUR and I might even have got off to the start that I did this year but I had a few personal problems going on so at the time for me – I would have taken a card had I got through and got one – but I think it was a blessing that I kind of missed out and used that fuel to push on the last year. Off the course I was in a lot better place to do what I’ve done this year.
“It was always a path I wanted to take so it was a massive relief once we eventually did it.”
With the help of that third-place finish at the Valspar and five other made cuts from his nine starts, Smith is 51st on the FedEx Cup Rankings and ready for a Signature Event start having already teed it up at THE PLAYERS.
As far as a base goes for a rookie, this one is pretty solid and Smith is eager to make the most of it.
“Obviously we want to keep pushing on for bigger and better things but it’s nice to have that little comfort blanket now,” he said.
“At the start of the year our bottom goal was to keep our card so now we’re in a good position to push on from there. If we can make our way into the [FedEXCup] play-offs that would be great, that would a very successful year.
“But I definitely can win out there. I’ve shown at the Valspar that I can compete with those guys so I feel confident that if I am on my game then I can definitely win out there.
“Like anything, it’s just a matter of time and getting that experience and getting used to stuff out there. I definitely believe that could happen.”
He may be just months into life on a new tour but Smith seems, confident, content and ready for whatever may come next.
After a 12-year professional career that has required plenty of patience among some towering highs, he knows the next step is just a matter of time.
