Whirlwind year leads Matthew NeSmith to PGA TOUR

Planning a wedding. Purchasing a home with his bride-to-be. Chasing a PGA TOUR card.

All bullet points on Matthew NeSmith’s 2019 to-do list. All boxes that can now be checked.

NeSmith and his fiancée Abigail bought a house in Aiken, South Carolina, in which they stayed for the first time during Masters week. The wedding is scheduled for November 1 in Augusta, Georgia (with a reception in Aiken). The 30-day countdown is on.

RELATED: What you need to know about NeSmith

And with a victory at the Albertsons Boise Open presented by Kraft Nabisco, he secured his first PGA TOUR card via The Finals 25, earning more Finals Points than all players aside from Scottie Scheffler.

It’s been quite a whirlwind 12-month stretch for the University of South Carolina alum, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“(The win) hit me in the face, in all honesty,” admitted NeSmith, who is set to compete at this week’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open on TOUR. “You never know where you’re going to end up. It didn’t really feel like I was doing a whole lot of anything. I was just getting to the right place to give myself an opportunity to play well, then all of a sudden I was in a position to win a golf tournament with five holes left.”

2019 marked NeSmith’s first full Korn Ferry Tour season after a solid collegiate career and two seasons on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada. He had three top-10 finishes during the Regular Season – including a T8 the Ellie Mae Classic at TPC Stonebrae, where he led after 36 and 54 holes – and finished 46th on the Regular Season Points List.

The Finals-opening Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship was a microcosm of what had happened earlier in the year. He opened with a 66 at the Ohio State University GC (Scarlet), but followed with a second-round 74. He’d go on to finish T45.

The next week, though, was a different story.

He entered the final round three shots back of Viktor Hovland, but rallied with a 7-under 64 at Hillcrest CC, including birdies on Nos. 16 and 18, to win by a shot over Hovland and Brandon Hagy.

“You never know if you’re ever going to do it, you know? Until you do it,” NeSmith said of his victory. “It’s always like, ‘Are you going to? Are you not? When you get an opportunity, are you going to take care of the opportunity?’”

NeSmith points to the Ellie Mae Classic as a perfect example. He played very well that week, he said, and started to question whether he would get another shot at a TOUR card in 2019.

“I was lucky enough to get another (opportunity) later in the year and it really worked out,” he said. “Everything started to click and I started to believe I could win. I got into position. I played really solidly. I got it done.”

Now NeSmith is getting adjusted to TOUR life as best, and as quickly, as he can.

Having secured his TOUR card later than almost anyone save for the small handful who locked up a spot via the Korn Ferry Tour Championship presented by United Leasing & Finance, it has been a quick turnaround.

“I had a bit of a good-golf hangover in Indiana and it’s ran its course the last few weeks. I’m trying to get out of it,” NeSmith said, as he has missed the first three cuts of the 2019-20 TOUR season, although his scoring average is still 69.569 – good for 47th on TOUR.

“I’m playing good golf. I just haven’t quite been consistent enough to play some really good golf,” he continued. “It’s right around the corner. You can feel when your game is in a good spot and I just haven’t been able to quite put it together. I played a good round last week and I followed that up playing like crap (laughs) … but I’m getting closer.”

NeSmith has his coach on-site this week, as he makes his first trip to Las Vegas, another stop on TOUR he’s trying to get familiarized with.

“It is very different,” NeSmith said, noting the larger scale of TOUR events. “On the Korn Ferry Tour, we’ve got the people playing the event, people working the event, and out here there is a ton more security and people working the event and just … everything.”

The results are coming, NeSmith believes, and even though his pending nuptials are right around the corner (“Everything is pretty much in place. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t know about it,” he says with a laugh), he’s still been able to have a laser-like focus on what he needs to do.

“It’s been an 18-month engagement, so it has always felt kind of far away,” he said. “It’s never felt like it was all that close. And it still doesn’t feel like it’s all that close. But I’m sure it’ll be here before I know it. I’m just trying to focus on the right things, putting one foot in front the other and focus on getting a number on the golf course,” he says. “No one is going to hit the golf ball for me.”

NeSmith has made the leap. He earned his PGA TOUR card by taking advantage of an opportunity in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. Now it’s time to make good things happen.