Why shock PGA winner can kick on from here

Australian PGA winner Elvis Smylie has the “right team” around him and the game to handle the swift ascension to the big time that other previous young winners of the tournament haven’t, according to his superstar peers.

Smylie earnt a full-time playing card on the DP World Tour as well as $340,000 courtesy of his two-shot win over Cameron Smith at Royal Queensland and jumped 483 places on the world rankings to a career-high 253.

That leap makes him the ninth-highest ranked Australian in the world going into this week’s Australian Open in Melbourne where the spotlight will be on the 22-year-old left-hander to continue a bold campaign that also netted him the WA Open and three other top-10 finishes in his past six events.

Smylie’s success has come after a coaching shift, joining the stable of Peth-based Richie Smith, who remains central to the careers of Min Woo Lee, who won the Australian PGA in 2023 and played a full year on the US PGA Tour in 2024, as well as major champions Minjee Lee and Hannah Green.

Making that move could, according to Jason Day, be crucial in giving Smylie the “structure” he needs to continue to accelerate his career, something that has been hard for other young winners of the Australian “major”.

In 2021, Queenslander Jed Morgan became the youngest winner of the Australian PGA, aged just 22. But he missed cuts in nine of his next 16 events, joined the LIV Golf tour in 2023 but was dumped from the all-Australian Ripper GC team at the end of the season and is now ranked 985th, battling to keep his Asian tour card.

Nathan Holman was another surprise winner of the Australian PGA in 2015 but struggled in Europe after earning his tour card via his win and stopped playing professionally three years later.

But Smylie is more geared to follow the path of Min Woo Lee, according to former world No.1 Day who liked what he saw in the left-hander.

“He was struggling there for a little bit and then he transferred to Richie (Smith) and he has done a great job with Minners (Lee) but also Hannah and Minjee,” Day said after finishing in a tie for eighth at Royal Queensland, his first event in Australia since 2017.

“I think he is going to help Elvis, because Elvis is a young guy, to give him a bit more structure. What a lot of kids miss, especially Australians, is they miss the structure of being a professional and being on tour.

“If you can handle that and make that more routine, you are able to just improve dramatically. I think his team, the guys he’s working with, they have done it before which gives you confidence knowing ‘I have a good team behind me’.”

Cameron Smith said it was a “bittersweet” moment watching Smylie, a former holder of the Cameron Smith scholarship, relegate him to second and wasn’t sure a win like that would “happen so quickly” when the British Open champ started to help the next generation.

But Smith, who said he wanted to be someone “for them to talk to” having felt he missed out on that coming through the ranks, said all the signs, even before Smylie’s win, pointed to long-term success.

“It’s a long way to come from being a junior golfer to a professional golfer and he keeps making the right steps,” Smith aid.

“You could tell, even that week he was there, that he’s a hard worker, which is a really good trait to have. He should enjoy this win but keep working hard, he’s got a really long way to go.

“For me the biggest thing was having someone for them to talk to. I feel like I had a couple of years there where I could have used that.

“I saw it (the scholarship) as an opportunity, you help really young kids, particularly ones travelling all over the world, as they have to really. Then a few tricks and lessons here and there, but more than anything else, just someone to have a chat to.”