{"id":532968,"date":"2026-04-15T22:05:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T22:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/532968\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T22:05:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T22:05:20","slug":"its-just-a-matter-of-time-patience-and-perseverance-fuelling-jordan-smiths-dual-membership-adventure-articles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/532968\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s\u00a0just a matter of time – Patience and perseverance fuelling Jordan Smith’s dual membership adventure – Articles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patience is perhaps the most overused word in golf but for Jordan Smith<\/a> it is so much more than a clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\"Jordan<\/p>\n

The Englishman will tee it up this week\u00a0in his first Signature Event on the PGA TOUR\u00a0as he takes the next step on a golfing journey\u00a0that has seen\u00a0him ride\u00a0waves much like the ones that will lap up at Hilton Head Island during the RBC Heritage.<\/p>\n

His rise through the ranks was\u00a0initially\u00a0rapid, winning the\u00a0EuroPro\u00a0Tour Order of Merit and Road to Mallorca\u00a0en\u00a0route\u00a0to\u00a0a win in his rookie DP World Tour season\u00a0but\u00a0he would claim just one more victory over the next eight years.<\/p>\n

An admission that \u201cmaybe I haven\u2019t won as many tournaments as people think\u201d\u00a0is\u00a0perhaps the\u00a0fairest marker for a career that has\u00a0so far\u00a0seen\u00a0a consistency\u00a0that is the envy of most, while not always delivering on that stellar start.<\/p>\n

But after securing dual membership via the Race to Dubai last season and having made an excellent start to life on the PGA TOUR, maybe Smith\u2019s best times are yet to come.<\/p>\n

When we catch up with the 33-year-old, he is back in the UK as the regular DP World Tour and PGA TOUR schedules take a break for the Masters Tournament, an event where fellow class of 2025 dual members Marco Penge, Kristoffer Reitan and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen all made their debuts.<\/p>\n

For Smith, who has played in the other three Majors including\u00a0a top ten on debut at the US PGA Championship in 2017,\u00a0a trip down Magnolia Lane is very much on the radar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely know that it can be done, it\u2019s just a matter of time,\u201d he tells the DP World Tour. \u201cGet those better results under my belt and move up the World Rankings and hopefully next year is our year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0probably the\u00a0closest\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0been this year but\u00a0not quite close\u00a0enough. It will definitely\u00a0happen,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0just a matter of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

That confidence is entirely merited, with Smith already around the edges of the top 50 on the Official World Golf Ranking and playing at Harbour Town this week thanks to a top three finish at the Valspar Championship last month.<\/p>\n

A habitual presence near the top of the DP World Tour statistics for driving accuracy and greens in regulation, it is perhaps no surprise that his game has travelled and Smith admits the changes he has faced since moving to Orlando and settling at the Isleworth Golf and Country Club have been more off the course than on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve played on the DP World Tour for nine seasons, I\u2019ve got to know the staff, the players, the venues, the courses and how everything works,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow everything has completely changed on a new tour where I may know a good handful of\u00a0players\u00a0but I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0really know how things work over there, I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0really know any of the staff or any of the venues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s been the biggest adjustment, just getting used to a lot of new things, new faces and new golf courses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GettyImages-179977925\"<\/p>\n

Smith played in the 2013 Walker Cup<\/p>\n

Having the support of girlfriend Sammy, who has moved to the United States with him, has \u201cmade a world of difference\u201d, while Smith sees plenty of familiar faces inside the ropes as well.<\/p>\n

Along with his cohorts from the class of 2025, Smith is able to take some advice from players long familiar with plying their trade on the other side of the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try and play practice rounds with Marco and John Parry and I get on with Haotong Li so we try and play practice rounds together as well. It\u2019s nice having those guys around and socialising with those,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0also nice to have Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose to fall back on. I played a couple of practice rounds with Tommy at THE PLAYERS which was\u00a0really nice\u00a0just to see how he saw different holes and a bit of experience there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to have those guys there that if you do need anything, you can go up and talk to them, even if it\u2019s just general chit-chat rather than golf stuff, it\u2019s nice to have that support there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith, Penge,\u00a0Parry\u00a0and fellow dual\u00a0member Dan Brown\u00a0are all PGA TOUR rookies in 2026\u00a0but all at some stage of their careers played not only on the DP World Tour but the\u00a0HotelPlanner\u00a0Tour and satellite\u00a0EuroPro\u00a0Tour.<\/p>\n

And Smith believes without that grounding he may not be where he is today, having had the option to go to college in the US but chosen to stay within the amateur set-up playing for his country around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was massive for me, it was the right route that I needed to take to get to where I am today,\u201d he says. \u201cWithout those satellite tours us guys wouldn\u2019t be where we are now.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0just a way of learning how to cope with playing for\u00a0huge amounts\u00a0of money and playing in front of cameras and crowds and travelling around and living out of a suitcase and a hotel. You get to learn what it is like to be a pro golfer to start with so that is\u00a0sort of\u00a0where\u00a0us guys have learned our trade and got in a bit of experience through that and then moved our way up through the tours.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know a lot of guys go to Qualifying School and turn pro straight away and go out to the main tour but you see those guys struggle because they just don\u2019t know what it is like to play as a professional golfer with a lot of stuff on the line, with keeping cards and making money and playing in front of huge crowds.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Smith, the steps up seemed to come easily, with those two Rankings wins and then a maiden DP World Tour victory\u00a0at the 2017 Porsche European Open.<\/p>\n

He would finish in the top 50 on the Race to\u00a0Dubai in 2018 and 2019\u00a0and just outside in the Covid-affected schedules of\u00a02020 and 2021, with ten top\u00a0tens\u00a0coming across those four seasons.<\/p>\n

He would finish second twice in as many months at the start of 2022\u00a0but\u00a0with\u00a0the second win proving elusive, doubt was beginning to creep in.<\/p>\n

When victory did come, it came in record-breaking style at 30 under at the Portugal Masters. After claiming five wins\u00a0on the\u00a0EuroPro,\u00a0HotelPlanner\u00a0and DP World Tours in under two years, he had waited five years and three months for his next.<\/p>\n

I have learned from previous years of missing out and all that heartache. I feel like\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0a much mentally stronger person<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was all such a quick rise,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cBecause everything was still brand new to\u00a0me\u00a0I\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0have any mental scars, I\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0have any\u00a0previous\u00a0bad\u00a0thoughts\u00a0and it was all just a learning curve at the time.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0why the younger guys take everything in their stride and come firing out of the blocks.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually it\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0going to keep on going up, it was going to plateau out a bit and the longer it went on without winning again I\u00a0probably got\u00a0in my own head and did think if it was ever going to happen again.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I didn\u2019t continue on that rise, it did play on my mind a little bit but I think I\u2019ve learned a lot from those experiences. Maybe I haven\u2019t won as many tournaments as people think but I wouldn\u2019t be where I am today necessarily if I had won more tournaments. It\u2019s all been a learning curve and still is.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer it went on without winning for the second time it did get quite frustrating. I had a lot of close\u00a0calls\u00a0and\u00a0I\u00a0think from those close calls I was beating myself up a little bit by thinking that I\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0good enough to do it again.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think that does make you a lot stronger. If I am in those situations\u00a0now\u00a0I have learned from previous years of missing out and all that heartache. I feel like\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0a much mentally stronger person\u00a0and in those situations,\u00a0I\u2019d\u00a0be able to thrive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew eventually it was going to happen, I just didn\u2019t think it would take five years but these things happen. It\u2019s not easy winning out on any tour. It was just a case of keeping my head down and trying to improve in certain areas which I managed to do and that was the difference. It was about learning from those past experiences to make me a batter golfer and more mentally strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

2022 proved to be his best season to date with a 12th-placed finish on the\u00a0Race to Dubai\u00a0\u2013 had dual membership been available via the Rankings, he would have easily secured it.<\/p>\n

He was close to dual membership in\u00a02023 but in 2024 the margins became as fine as they could be, with Smith missing out\u00a0by 10.43 points\u00a0on the Rankings\u00a0\u2013\u00a0literally one\u00a0shot.<\/p>\n

Had\u00a0Smith\u00a0not sent his tee\u00a0shot right\u00a0on the\u00a018th\u00a0hole\u00a0on Sunday\u00a0at the season-ending\u00a0DP World Tour Championship, or had he made the 22-footer that he still managed to leave himself for birdie, we could be telling a different story.<\/p>\n

But as has been the case throughout Smith\u2019s career, timing and patience are everything, and he reveals it may have been a blessing that he did not take the final card.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was gutting to miss out in 2024… but at the time I don\u2019t think I was ready to get out to the PGA TOUR but I was definitely ready to get out there in 2025 so it was nice to finally do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I would have done it in 2024 I would have been able to manage a year on the PGA TOUR and I might even have got off to the start that I did this year but I had a few personal problems going on so at the time for me \u2013 I would have taken a card had I got through and got one \u2013 but I think it was a blessing that I kind of missed out and used that fuel to push on the last year. Off the course I was in a lot better place to do what\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0done this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was always a path I wanted to take so it was a massive relief once we eventually did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the help of that third-place finish at the Valspar and five other made cuts from his nine starts, Smith is 51st on the FedEx Cup Rankings and ready for a Signature Event start having already teed it up at THE PLAYERS.<\/p>\n

As far as a base\u00a0goes for a\u00a0rookie, this one is pretty\u00a0solid\u00a0and\u00a0Smith is eager to make the most of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously we want to keep pushing on for bigger and better things but it\u2019s nice to have that little comfort blanket now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the start of the year our bottom goal was to keep our card so now we\u2019re in a good position to push on from there. If we can make our way into the [FedEXCup] play-offs that would be great, that would a very successful year.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u00a0definitely can\u00a0win out there.\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0shown at the Valspar that I can compete with those guys so I feel confident that if I am\u00a0on my game then I can\u00a0definitely win\u00a0out there.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike anything,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0just a matter of time and getting that experience and getting used to stuff out there. I\u00a0definitely believe\u00a0that could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He may be just months into life on a new tour but Smith seems, confident, content and ready for whatever may come next.<\/p>\n

After a 12-year professional career that has required plenty of patience among some towering highs, he knows the next step is just a matter of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patience is perhaps the most overused word in golf but for Jordan Smith it is so much more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-532968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}