{"id":914207,"date":"2026-10-03T03:32:28","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T03:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914207\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T03:32:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T03:32:28","slug":"smotherman-fires-to-utah-lead-as-aussie-davis-falters-australian-golf-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914207\/","title":{"rendered":"Smotherman fires to Utah lead as Aussie Davis falters \u2013 Australian Golf Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Austin Smotherman has finished with a three-birdie burst to take a one-stroke lead after the second round of the PGA\u2019s Bank of Utah Championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The American carded a 9-under 62 to be 17 under at the Black Desert Resort in Ivins on Friday as Australian Cam Davis faltered and was likely to miss the cut.<\/p>\n<p>Smotherman beat his Thursday score by \u200cone shot to be one ahead of Kevin Roy (63) with fellow Americans Doug Ghim and Kevin Streelman a further shot adrift and tied for third.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The 32-year-old already had seven birdies and a bogey on his card when he reached the par-4 16th, where he converted a three metre birdie putt.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He stayed hot with the flat stick and made \u200c\u200cbirdie at \u2060the par-3 17th before his two-putt birdie at \u200bthe par-5 18th.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was just very steady \u2014 a lot of greens, a lot of fairways, a couple tight wedges,\u201d Smotherman said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s what you\u2019ve got to do to shoot 9 under.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1790998348_959_.jpeg\" alt=\"PGA \"\/>Austin Smotherman has a one-shot lead at the halfway point in the Bank of Utah Championship. (<a href=\"https:\/\/photos.aap.com.au\/search\/20260301121501697515\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AP PHOTO<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>Smotherman is seeking his first PGA Tour victory, along with access to the first two signature events of 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Bank of Utah Championship is the second of eight tournaments that are part of the FedEx Cup Fall, where the top 100 in the standings at the end of the year keep full cards for next year.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0The top 60 are assured of getting into $20 million signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera.<\/p>\n<p>Roy is at No. 87 and would love nothing more than a good week to not worry about it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think first and foremost keep a job,\u201d Roy said with a laugh.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, really, just keep going out and just trying to play one shot at a time and see where we stack up at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Streelman, who shot a 64, needs a strong fall \u200bas he \u200centered this week 151st in the points race.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel like I have nothing to lose, really,\u201d the 47-year-old said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is my almost 20th year doing this and pushing 500 starts and my family\u2019s coming in this weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just feel I\u2019m going to try and attack and have fun, and if things go well, great. If they don\u2019t, it\u2019s OK, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As well as Davis, who was tied for 69th at 5 under, \u200bother notable \u200bnames in line to \u200bmiss the projected cut of 6 under \u200cpar included Maverick McNealy, Lucas Glover, and Max Greyserman all at 5 under; Tony Finau at 4 under; and Zach Johnson at 1 over.<\/p>\n<p>Star rookie Jackson Koivun, fresh off his appearance on the victorious US Presidents \u200bCup team, holed a birdie putt at 18 to \u200bshoot 67 and reach 6 \u2060under, probably enough to have him play the weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Austin Smotherman has finished with a three-birdie burst to take a one-stroke lead after the second round of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,405163,85,2614],"class_list":["post-914207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-overseas-sport","tag-sports","tag-united-states-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}