Editor's note: Austin Smotherman earned his first PGA TOUR card through the 2020-21 Korn Ferry Tour, securing the 25th and final card available via the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season Points List. The native of Northern California is competing on TOUR as a rookie in 2021-22, fresh off a closing 66 and T11 finish at last week's Farmers Insurance Open.

This story originally ran in summer 2021, taking a look at Smotherman's unique relationship with his grandpa Bill Acquistapace, who will be on-site as Smotherman competes at this week's AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in his home region.

Austin Smotherman’s routine prior to each Korn Ferry Tour event is the same. He must chat with his grandfather to provide the course rundown. Not so his grandfather can check up on how it fits his game, though. It’s more of a preliminary strike on his grandfather’s nerves by letting his grandfather know how the course is playing, so when he is following along at home he’ll know when to sweat and when not to.

“I have to give him the whole rundown of, ‘Alright, when the PGA TOUR app says first cut, the first cut is nothing this week, don’t even worry about it. When it says primary rough, the rough is nonexistent this week, so do not worry,” Smotherman said. “Because he’ll see me in the rough and he’ll start freaking out.”

Smotherman’s grandfather, Bill Acquistapace, is the man who introduced him to the game. When he was 3 or 4, his grandfather cut in half an old Sam Snead 7-iron blade and a persimmon 5-wood and taped them with duct tape and electrical tape for grips.

Now that his grandson is on the Korn Ferry Tour, Acquistapace and his daughter, Smotherman’s mom, have become pros at figuring out his proximity to the hole with minimal information when they can’t be at the tournament. If his two playing partners' scores post on the app before him, they get excited because they know he’s got a nice look at birdie.

“They live and die by the PGA TOUR app every single week,” Smotherman said. “But they love it.”

Smotherman, who played at SMU despite never having a coach until college, even jokes with his grandfather each holiday season about the present he’s going to get him based on that love.

“I always joke with my grandfather that every Christmas, I’m going to have to get him a new keyboard because he’s hitting enter and refresh so often that he’s going to break it every single year,” Smotherman laughed.

When Smotherman’s playing on the East Coast with an early tee time on Thursday or Friday, it can make for some early mornings for Acquistapace, who lives in Sacramento, California. So Smotherman tries to do his best to take care of him for the weekend.

“I’ve been getting some early-morning tee times, 7 o'clock on the East Coast, 4 o'clock for him,” Smotherman said. “So, he’s like, ‘Alright, I’ll catch you on the sixth hole. I’ll be on my second cup of coffee by then!’ And then I’m like, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you a late tee time on Saturday so you can sleep in, alright?’”

The two still make sure to talk for a couple minutes after each competitive round. Acquistapace is quite the player himself, too. Although he doesn’t get to play much anymore, he has six holes-in-one and shot his age when he was 77. He’s been a major part of getting his grandson to the Korn Ferry Tour, and maybe even the PGA TOUR soon.

“He’s been a big part of it all,” said Smotherman, who grew up participating in the First Tee of Greater Sacramento, winning the chapter's Core Value Award in 2011, and also competed as a junior participant in PGA TOUR Champions' PURE Insurance Championship Impacting First Tee at Pebble Beach in both 2009 and 2010.

At No. 25 on the Korn Ferry Tour Points Standings, his grandfather will surely be hitting refresh a lot over the final two events, as Smotherman chases one of the 25 PGA TOUR cards that will be awarded at the Regular Season-ending Pinnacle Bank Championship presented by Aetna. His grandfather won’t be in Omaha but will be in attendance at the following week's Finals-opening Albertsons Boise Open presented by Chevron, and Smotherman hopes they’ll have a PGA TOUR card to celebrate together. He got a lot closer to that dream last week with a T4 that helped him jump back inside the top 25.

“Last week was huge. I think I kind of proved to myself that I could keep those thoughts of (the top 25) out of my head,” Smotherman said.

The California native admits it’s hard to keep the bubble out of the mind at this stage, especially when his caddie is wearing a top-25 bib, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s obviously going to be crunch time, but I wouldn’t change it for the world,” Smotherman said. “To be in this position at the start of the year, I would have said, ‘Give it to me. Embrace it, go play well.’ And you know what, someone’s gotta be the bubble boy, and I feel like I can handle it. And now I've got to go kind of prove that. Whether I finish 25, 26 or 15, I feel confident, and it’s a very cool feeling.”

Considering Smotherman's statistics, it would be hard not to be confident. He ranks sixth on the Korn Ferry Tour in ball striking, seventh in total driving, 10th in greens in regulation and 11th in driving accuracy. At Lakewood National earlier this year, he posted the best mark of the Korn Ferry Tour season to this point, hitting 44 greens in a row. He also won his first Korn Ferry Tour event in a wire-to-wire victory in May at the Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation, and he has added two additional top-5s in his last five starts.

It’s the type of season that has the 27-year-old on the verge of a lifelong dream – a PGA TOUR card – that would complete a journey that goes far beyond just him.

“To make a start as a PGA TOUR member, that would be accomplishing a lifelong dream of mine,” Smotherman said. “It would definitely be rewarding and to have that sense of pride. My family and everyone that sacrificed things around me through my whole life from traveling to junior events, to spending time away from my wife ... we got married young and I traveled a ton ... but I think it’d be rewarding for me and everyone around me that have seen my work put in.”

And if he starts to feel that bubble pressure over the next two weeks, he knows where to turn.

“My family’s support," Smotherman reflected, "those are the things coming down the stretch, if I have any nerves the next couple of weeks, how can I not fall back on that and just know, 'Hey, relax a little bit, Austin, this game’s done a lot for you. Let’s go take care of business now!'"

His grandfather will certainly be refreshing and following along.