In sport, it is very easy to find the prodigies – those whose natural talent is apparent from the moment they first attempt their chosen discipline – and the late developers, who suddenly discover top-class abilities some years after one might usually expect. Jordan Smith, however, might actually be both.
Though it might seem strange to describe such a young man – he turns 24 today – as a late developer, the Englishman only swung a golf club for the first time at the age of 12, far later than the vast majority of his contemporaries.
Equally, if not quite a prodigy, Smith’s talents blossomed so quickly that in a little over a decade he has gone from being a promising schoolboy to winning the EuroPro Tour in 2015 and now, in his maiden Challenge Tour season, becoming the Road to Oman champion and graduating to the European Tour – a meteoric rise by anyone’s standards.
“I took up golf when I was about 12 or 13,” he said. “Me and my dad watched the Masters on TV and we lived right next to the course I still play at now, so we thought we’d go up there and see what it was all about.
“I was more into my football and rugby at that time but I just gradually got better and better at golf and eventually had to give up the other sports to concentrate on my game.
“I know that 12 is relatively late to be starting, a lot of the guys out here had a club in their hands before they could walk, but I thankfully picked it up quite quickly.
“As I progressed, and the handicap came down, I just got bitten by the golf bug and kept wanting to get better and better, got into county teams and worked my way up.”
While a Walker Cup appearance in 2013 and two wins on the EuroPro Tour on his way to topping the Order of Merit showed that Smith was already a very capable player, few would have been paying him too much attention ahead of the Challenge Tour’s season-opening Barclays Kenya Open back in March.
By the end of the next tournament, though, everyone had stood up and taken notice as an opening round of 63 gave Smith a lead he would never relinquish in a wire-to-wire victory at the Red Sea Egyptian Challenge Presented by Hassan Allam Properties.
From that point on, a relentless assault on the Rankings ensued. A further six top-ten finishes meant Smith never dropped out of the top five on the Road to Oman, leading the way for 14 of the 25 weeks heading into the final fortnight of the season in the Middle East.
An overdue second win followed at the season’s penultimate event, the Ras Al Khaimah 2016 Golf Challenge, all but securing Smith’s Number One Ranking which he duly confirmed at the NBO Golf Classic Grand Final.
As he walked off the final green at Al Mouj Golf, his proud mother tearfully embraced him, and when later reflecting on his rapid ascent through the golfing ranks, Smith was quick to highlight the role his family has played in his success so far.
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
“My family have been immense,” he said. “When I first took up the game properly, and got into England teams and regional teams, they were always supporting me.
“My dad didn’t want me to work a job, he just told me to go out and concentrate on my golf and that they’d look after that, and thankfully for them both now I’ve been able to get to where I am today – it’s payback time now, definitely.
“That’s why walking off the 18th green was emotional, mainly from my mum, and it was really nice to be able to have her here when I finished.”
With two Rankings wins in consecutive seasons, a joke doing the rounds among Smith’s Challenge Tour peers is that next year he will make it a hat-trick by winning the Race to Dubai.
Such forecasts remain firmly tongue-in-cheek for now, but few would bet against Wiltshire’s finest putting his name in the record books alongside the many other global Challenge Tour success stories, such as Open Champion Henrik Stenson and Olympic gold medalist Justin Rose.
“I never would have imagined I would go on to do what I have on the Challenge Tour this season,” he said. “My aim at the start of the year was to keep my Challenge Tour card, and now I have a European Tour card, so now I can go out and play next year and have fun.
“The Challenge Tour has definitely prepared me for next season. Travelling inside and outside of Europe and living out of a suitcase is something that has taken some getting used to, but I feel ready for next year.
“I’d like to think that I will be able to go out and compete on the European Tour next year, and hopefully win.”
