Matt NeSmith will go down as one of USC’s best golfers ever

The putt – one that would win the tournament, end two and one-half seasons of frustrations and validate all those junior championships – crawled agonizingly slow toward the hole on the 18^th green at Bulls Bay Golf Club. The ball seemed to have a life of its own, a mission to taunt those who watched.

Dead center, but hard enough? Maybe. Maybe not. Matt NeSmith raised his putter in a classic I-didn’t-hit-it gesture. His coach, Bill McDonald, grimaced at the possibility of another opportunity slipping away on the tournament’s third playoff hole.

They fretted in vain. The ball fell, NeSmith earned his first collegiate victory and the South Carolina stalwart used the triumph in the spring of 2015 to launch a streak of golf excellence that shows no signs of abating 13 months later.

“He’d always been outstanding (in college), but he had been a little frustrated” at not winning individual titles, McDonald said in reflecting on the player who, with senior teammate Will Starke, “took our program to another level.” Since rolling home that putt to claim the individual title in the 2015 Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate, “He’s been sensational.”

Define “sensational” this way: next time out, he won the SEC individual championship, blitzing the field by six strokes. He then took a step toward the U.S. Open by advancing in local qualifying, and dominated the competition in the sectionals en route to playing practice rounds with Rory McIlroy, Jason Day and their ilk at Chambers Bay.

Back home, he won the Players, one of the premier events on the summer amateur circuit, finished fourth in the Southern Amateur, made the 36-cut in the Western Amateur and advanced to match play in the U.S. Amateur.

NeSmith didn’t stop there. Headed into this week’s NCAA Regional Tournament in Tuscaloosa, Ala., he has celebrated his senior season with two wins and top-10s in seven of 10 tournaments. He’s ranked 13th among college players this year. For his career, he has placed in the top 20 in 33 of 46 events en route to setting the school record for career scoring average. He found time to slip in a second-place finish in qualifying for the PGA Tour’s Canadian Tour, giving him a place to play for pay in June and a route to pro golf’s major league.

All-SEC? Sure. All-American? Gotta be.

Truth be told, he could be competing in the pro ranks today. He pondered his options this time last year and thought, “My game is ready.” But he considered his commitment to Carolina, figured professional golf would always be there and spent his senior year bolstering his credentials, completing his degree in sociology and “enjoying what college kids are supposed to do.”

Now, with only one or two college tournaments remaining, he can look back with satisfaction and look ahead with anticipation. The possibilities, his coach said, are enormous.

Hooked on golf at early age

NeSmith grew up in North Augusta. He played other sports, but he inherited his dad Darren’s love for golf and would tag along with his dad and an older cousin to the driving range at age 5. By the eighth grade, golf had evolved from a couple-of-times-a-week lark to a seven-days-a-week passion. More than once he practiced into the night under a street light.

Darren NeSmith likes to tell the story of the family trip to Disney World that coincided with Matt’s cousin playing in a tournament.

“After a couple of hours in the theme park, Matt would say, ‘Dad, let’s go out to the golf,’ ” the elder NeSmith said. “He loved it, but we (he and his Matt’s mother, Beth) didn’t push him.”

Given Matt’s thirst for golf, Darren provided the initial instruction.

“He taught me the right way,” Matt said. “Dad’s a better coach than a player.”

To build on that foundation, his parents sent Matt to work with hall-of-fame instructor Jackie Seawell at Houndslake in Aiken.

“Mr. Jackie taught me more things,” Matt said, “and it’s always good to hear from someone else.”

He developed his game, and not just against junior competition. His senior year in high school, NeSmith won the Azalea Invitational, a tournament in Charleston that annually attracts some of the country’s best amateurs. His junior honors included the national Rolex Player of the Year, an award won three years earlier by Jordan Spieth.

He never dreamed that would be possible until his friend Cody Proveaux, from Lexington and now a senior at Clemson, won the award.

“The best junior in the country? I thought that would be out of reach,” NeSmith said. “Then Cody won it, and I wanted to win it, too. Cody made it attainable.”

Like his junior career and his high school performances, NeSmith’s game steadily improved in college. His performance in the 2015 U.S. Open sectional qualifying – 17-under-par 127 for 36 holes in one day – is stunning.

Todd White, who has been named South Carolina’s player of the year multiple times, remembered meeting NeSmith at Palmetto a couple of days later.

“I teased him and told him, ‘I played Hawks Ridge (and shot 137). Did you play the same Hawks Ridge?’ That was incredible golf by an incredible young man.”

NeSmith smiled at the memory and said, “I made a couple of 30-footers in a practice round and obviously liked the greens. In the qualifying, I missed a 5-footer on the first hole – and made everything else.”

Great Gamecocks career

NeSmith, the South Carolina Golf Association’s player of the year in 2015, looks back at his four years at Carolina with fondness and noted the time has passed too quickly.

“It seems like yesterday I moved into the South Quad,” he said.

He prefers to remember his teammates and the tournament successes rather than dwell on his individual triumphs. He passed up an exemption to play in the year’s RBC Heritage, a plum from winning the Players title last summer, to be with the Gamecocks in the SEC championship.

“Hopefully, there will be other Heritages,” he said.

He might not talk about them, but he leaves with a bushel of memories for others. McDonald, who is now his swing instructor, recalled his first meeting with NeSmith. The coach had not met him, but he had heard about his achievements and invited him to visit at a football game.

“I was standing there at the gate where the recruits come in at Williams-Brice Stadium, and somebody said, ‘That’s NeSmith,’ ” McDonald said. “I thought, ‘No way. That’s one of the football players.’ It turned out that he is a big guy with a big game.”

On the course, McDonald shakes his head at the memory of NeSmith’s final hole in this spring’s tournament at the Dunes Golf and Beach Club in Myrtle Beach.

“He knew he needed a birdie to tie for the individual championship,” McDonald said. “His drive on 18 (a long par-4 with a pond guarding the green) caught a limb and ended up on hard pan. The wind was blowing 20 miles per hour and the pin was back right and he had a tough angle. I was concerned he might slip. He took his 7-iron and hit it to 15 feet, then rolled the putt in dead center.”

The NeSmith family fondly recalled the 2015 U.S. Open – a far cry, his dad said, from the 76 for nine holes Matt shot in one of his first competitive tournaments.

“He played practice rounds with Rory, Jason, Justin Rose, Matt Kucher and some others,” Darren NeSmith said. “Fox was doing the telecast for the first time and Greg Norman and the whole Fox team walked with them for nine holes. Matt hit his shot into the first hole and we looked up and there’s Greg giving him a thumbs up.”

Thumbs up. Yeah, that describes his golf game and his college career. And like his coach said, this is just the start.

This story was originally published May 7, 2016 at 10:47 PM with the headline "Matt NeSmith will go down as one of USC’s best golfers ever."