Alex Smalley, an under-the-radar golfer, is making waves at the 2026 PGA Championship, showcasing his competitive spirit. Former Duke coach Jamie Green recalls a pivotal match against Scottie Scheffler that highlighted Smalley's talent.
Key points
Alex Smalley is competing in the 2026 PGA Championship.
He previously defeated Scottie Scheffler in the 2018 NCAA Championship.
Smalley is currently just off the lead in the tournament.
Former Duke coach Jamie Green praises Smalley's talent and toughness.
Mentioned in this story
Duke University
Alex SmalleyScottie SchefflerPGA Championship 2026
NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. â For those of you who think Alex Smalley seems quiet, retreating or perhaps even a little meek on the course, former Duke head coach Jamie Green has a story for you. It's from 2018, when Duke had just seized the No. 2 seed at the NCAA Championship. As luck would have it, the Blue Devilsâ quarterfinal opponent in match play would be a Texas team loaded with talent who had under-performed in stroke play. The five individual matches are set Presidents Cup style, with coaches pairing players one by one. Thatâs when Green found himself having to decide who would face one of Texas' most intimidating starsâa powerhouse senior with a promising future in the professional game. But it wasn't a tough call for him, because he'd already planned for this exact scenario.
"I intentionally put Alex Smalley against Scottie Scheffler," he said.
It was the lead-off match, and they played the first four holes all square before Smalley caught fire. He won holes 5, 7, 9, 10, and 12, and then halved 14 for a 5-and-4 victory. The momentum propelled Duke to 3-2 win, and a berth in the semifinals. Unlike Scheffler, Smalley, a more or less unheralded junior from North Carolina, was not widely known, and the result was a shock to almost everyone, including Scheffler himself.
"I didn't hear it," Green said, "but the story goes, as Alex was out there making birdies, Scottie says, 'Who the f*** is this guy?'"
This guy is Alex Smalley, the best player Green has ever coached. And he's currently just off the lead at the 2026 PGA Championship.
It's an eye-popping story, but almost a decade later, there's plenty of perspective to go around. At 29, Smalley has obviously not had the career that Scheffler has. In fact, Smalley hasn't yet logged a professional victory on the PGA Tour, or on most of the smaller tours that got him there (he did claim one victory on the SwingThrough Tour). Before Aronimink, Smalley had played in as many majorsâfourâas Scheffler has won.
And yet, it's undeniable that he's found something. Last season, he had four top-10s and finished 79th in the FedEx Cup rankings while earning north of $2.3 million. That was the best year of his career, but he's already surpassed it in 2026, with just one missed cut in 13 events.
What changed? His caddie Michael Burns, who took the loop late in 2025, credits his swing tempo.
" When I first worked with him last year in Japan, at times he would tend to get a little quick," Burns said on Friday, "but he's been really focusing on his rhythm. One of our sayings is let the backswing mature. That's actually stolen from Adam Scott, a video of his."
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Smalley has a rythme with caddie Michael Burns, who he started working with last fall.
David Cannon
A few moments later, speaking to the media after posting a one-under 69 to get to four-under total, Smalley agreed.
"I think tempo and rhythm are big parts of my golf swing," he said. "If I can keep my tempo and rhythm in check, I'm typically pretty good off the tee and into the green. So I've really just tried to dive into that and focus on that this year. I think it's served me pretty well."
And the better he gets, the more people he'll play in front of, which he admitted had been tough for him early in his professional career, calling it "overwhelming" to have that many eyes on him.
"I don't like being in the spotlight a whole lot," he said Friday. âIt can be a little overwhelming. So I just try to go about my business as best as I can and realize that there's probably people that don't know who I am, and that's fine."
The number of golf fans who don't know who he is dwindles with each success, though, and could plummet if he summons his best golf this weekend.
So: Who is he?
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Smalley was born in Rochester, N.Y., but grew up in North Carolina, where he attended Wake Forest High School and somehow managed a 4.71 GPA while juggling four AP classes and a full junior golf load.
"I would go on record saying that he is the smartest kid I've ever had the opportunity to coach," said Justin Richards, his high school coach.
Richards has been at it for more than 20 years, and he's seen plenty of prospects come along, most of whom don't live up to the hype in a conference that routinely produces the state champion. The minute he watched Smalley at try-outs, though, he could tell he was watching someone special.
"I saw that swing, and it actually hasn't changed much, believe it or not," he remembered. "It had that very smooth tempo, and he just made it look so smooth it was frustrating."
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Smalley followed up a three-under 67 with a 69 on Friday to secure a spot in one of the final groups at Aronimink on Saturday.
Michael Reaves
Beyond the swing, what Richards saw was someone quiet who needed to feel very comfortable opening up socially, but who already had an almost professional work ethic, and a sense of wanting to make golf his life's work. Even the way he spoke to the local newspapers surprised his coachâeverything was considered and thoughtful, but never off-the-cuff. If anything, he worried that Smalley's intelligence might be to his detriment; that he'd have trouble relaxing and turning off his thoughts. He made sure to include him in team gatherings, and soon they saw a sneaky sense of humor emergeâone so dry that Richards used the word "British" to describe it.
(Burns, Smalley's caddie, called him "sneaky funny," but noted that he wasn't beyond a goofy face, or going against character, as when he faked anger at a caddie who walked in his line during the Valspar: "What the f***, Chad?!")
He earned the attention of a number of colleges, but Green, the Duke coach, was hesitant at first because for every great round he played, there were a few clunkers thrown in. The player he scouted, in his early high school years, didn't resemble the one that would go on to set a career record for scoring average in Durham, but late in his senior year, Green watched him shoot a brilliant round at a tournament in the North Carolina mountains, and it cemented the dealâhe wanted Smalley to be a Blue Devil.
Academics were of huge importance to the Smalleys, including his mother Maria, the self-described "momager" who graduated from Duke with a PhD herself. Green knew his schoolâs academic appeal would help.
But as Green described, he still had a lot to learn about Smalley, and Smalley had a lot to learn about himself. The first concern was his play, which resumed the roller coaster pattern and prevented Smalley from becoming a factor in team play his first semester. At that time, Green brought in Scott Fawcett from Decade Golf to teach the team course management, and when the fall was over, one of his assistants asked Smalley what percentage of his on-course decisions were influenced by what he learned.
Smalley thought about it for a moment, then said, "probably zero."
That answer annoyed the assistant, but Green had to smileâyes, Smalley's course management needed work, but the response showed an inner confidence that also mattered. And as Green made sure to stress to me, Smalley's answer was not defiant, or insulting, but simply matter-of-factâan attempt to give the most accurate information to the question.
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Smalley is playing in just his fifth major, his best previous finish a T-23 at the 2023 PGA.
Darren Carroll/PGA of America
You can see that same manner in his press conferences, when he speaks with a studious cadence that is almost academic, his sentences sprinkled with words like "disconcerting" that aren't common among professional golfers.
Green also wondered about Smalley's relationship with his family. Maria would often come from Raleigh before tournaments to pack his suitcase, and pre-cut fruit for him to eat. That first semester, Green would raise his eyebrow and think, "what is this?"
Soon, though, he realized that Smalley's discipline, both in golf and academics, was a family-wide mission, and that far from coddling him, his mother was trying to take care of the small details so that he would have longer to practice, and study, and focus on the things that would help him achieve his dreams. Before long, he found it "awesome," and on Friday, Burns echoed that sentiment.
" They're a phenomenal family," said the caddie. "You know, if more families were like that around the country, this country would be a lot better off."
Burns pointed to a specific detailâwhen Smalley is finished practicing on the putting green, he'll repair the indentations where his feet were. If he uses a tee as an aiming guide, he'll fix the hole when the tee comes out. His former coaches brought up that same sense of character, Richards speaking of the times he's come back to talk to the Wake Forest High players, and Green sharing a testimonial Smalley wrote for his new business.
"He's just very respectful," Burns said. "Hats off to his parents."
And as both men discovered, those parents, Maria the momager in particular, are never far away. When I followed Smalley around Duke University Golf Club last summer at the U.S. Open final qualifier, his mother and sister walked behind him, while his father Terry stayed ahead of each shot in what seemed like a choreographed system. On Friday, as he spoke to the press, Maria was there in the back of the tent, watching. According to Richards, Maria had been mainstay as early as his freshman year, when she attended every match and even caddied for her son at times.
But it didn't take long for Green to learn that Smalley played with a grit that belied his disposition and his skinny frame. In the offseason, Smalley dug deep into the statistics with the help of Maria and came back prepared to make smarter decisions on the course. Success came quickly, with a win that spring at the Princeton Invitational in the spring. The years went on, and Smalley thrived. He switched from Mizuno irons to Ping, captured All-ACC honors for three years, medaled at the U.S. Amateur, won ACC scholar athlete of the year as a senior, led Duke to the national semifinals while setting records of every kind, and played on the Palmer Cup and Walker Cup teams, going 6-2. Along the way, he managed to go head-to-head with the man who would become the greatest golfer of his generation, and beat him badly.
At times, Green could see his resilience in actionâthe time in Louisville when he began hitting snap hooks on the range that were so bad that an assistant stood there wondering whether to intervene. Seemingly unbothered, Smalley decided to tee it up low and hit a "squeezer cut" starting at the first tee. It worked; he shot a 61.
It only took him two years after turning pro to earn his PGA Tour card, and he's stayed in the mix since. Until now, it has been a mostly quiet professional career, taking on the rhythms of your average journeyman, competent but unspectacular. But the last year has changed that, too. The potential win has creeped closer, and if not for Matt Fitzpatrick hitting the shot of the year from the 18th bunker at the Zurich Classic last month, Smalley would have made his first PGA Tour playoff.
"It feels like if we're not in the mix now," Bursn said, "we're failing."
"You can have the self-confidence before you play a tournament and know that, yes, I'm good enough, I'm good enough to compete out here," Smalley said Friday. "But when you have results to back it up, I think that gives you that little extra mojo."
After Friday's performance, when he shot his 69 on a shockingly difficult Aronimink course, he'll be brimmingâespecially after he recovered from a stretch of three straight bogeys on his back nine that came after he had established a two-shot lead on the field. It looked, from the outside, like he'd seen evidence that he was leading a major championship and crumbled at the thought. The stage was too clearly big for him ⌠right?
The truth was, his group was put on the clock at the worst time, and a misjudged putt, an errant sand shot, and one of his few bad wedges cost him. But he recovered instantly with a birdie on the next hole, and finished with another to climb right back to the top. It was the latest example that when it comes to Smalley, there's often more than meets the eye.
