SAN FRANCISCO – Will the real Nathan Smith please stand up.
While U.S. Walker Cup captain Nathan Smith is observing the action this week at the Olympic Club, where his 10-man squad for Cypress Point will be filled out following Sunday’s U.S. Amateur final, another Nathan Smith is putting on a show.
Nate Smith, a 42-year-old from Tetonia, Idaho, fired back-to-back 1-under 69s, on Olympic’s Lake and Ocean courses, to breeze into match play as the seventh seed.
“I still have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Smith said with a laugh, before adding, “I didn’t have any expectations.”
Why should he? After all, while many of his fellow competitors were going through their skillfully crafted, pre-round routines and then slipping into their NIL-logoed apparel, Smith woke up early before his afternoon tee time to order some roofing materials and dial into a job site.
“I’m fully aware that I’m a full-time home builder, and these guys are dedicating their lives to the game and they’re some of the best amateurs in the world,” Smith said. “I used to be at one point; not anymore, but maybe I still am, who knows?”
Smith once was a hotshot amateur, too, a product of municipal golf out of Santa Cruz, less than two hours south of San Francisco, who played four years at Duke. He was a two-time All-American there before turning professional in 2006. He traveled the Hooters Tour with fellow Blue Devil Kevin Streelman, won there, and then won again on the then-called Nationwide Tour in 2010. That year, he fell out of the top 25 at that tour’s season finale, though later earned his PGA Tour card through Q-School.
But after only one season, during which he made $154,814 on eight of 24 cuts and failed to notch a top-25 finish, Smith lost his card. Two years later, he was quitting competitive golf after left-knee surgery and heading to graduate school at College of Charleston, where he not only earned his M.B.A. but met his wife, Amra.
“I had felt like I’d lost a lot stuff in my life, and I just wanted to turn the page,” Smith said.
The couple moved to Idaho, where Smith spent a few years getting his business off the ground. By 2022, he had the itch to compete again, so he applied to have his amateur status reinstated started playing some local events, which eventually led to state and national tournaments. He won the 2024 Idaho Amateur and the Snedeker Memorial earlier this year while making a run to the Round of 16 of the 2023 U.S. Mid-Amateur and tying for fourth at the Huddleston Cup. He’s qualified for three of the last four U.S. Amateurs, three times as many as he played during his first stint as an amateur.
“I still love the game, and I love competing; I just didn’t like the way I felt playing professional golf,” Smith said. “I have a much greater appreciation now for this game, which has given me everything in a lot of ways. I’m just so blessed to be here competing.”
Smith knows how crazy this game can be. He recently failed to qualify for the U.S. Mid-Amateur by a shot, and now, over the hill, he’s into the knockout stage at Olympic Club, which he’d occasionally play as a teenager if he was fortunate enough to score the invite.
He finds himself doing math often these days, and his head spins when he realizes that some of his peers this week, including 16-year-old Miles Russell, who was just two shots better than Smith in stroke play, were born after Smith graduated college.
And speaking of math, his odds of playing the Walker Cup next month at Cypress Point were astronomical before this week. But with the two main contenders for the one mid-amateur berth, Stewart Hagestad and Evan Beck, missing the cut, perhaps the door has been cracked open for Smith, the lone 25-and-older competitor left in this championship, to force his way onto the other Nathan Smith’s team.
The Smiths are familiar with each other. When it comes time for the Darrell Survey each year, surveyors are often confused when they see Nathan Smith has completely changed his bag of clubs. “Wrong guy,” Nate will then tell them, though he wishes he had four U.S. Mid-Amateur titles and three Walker Cup appearances under his belt.
“I gave him Nathan a while ago,” Nate explained. “That’s exactly why I did it because we kept getting confused. I really respect Nathan and what he’s accomplished in the mid-am game, and he’s older than me and he has seniority, so he got to keep Nathan.”
Back in 2004, they were both invited to attend the Walker Cup practice session ahead of the next year’s event at Chicago Golf Club. During the trip, captain Bob Lewis paired the Smiths in a match against Brian Harman and Roberto Castro at Old Memorial.
“Nate and Nate; it was the best!” Nate Smith said with a smile.
Now, 21 years later, could there be a Nathan Smith reunion at Cypress?
“I’ve been politicking with him a little bit,” Nate Smith said. “If I were to win, maybe there’d be an argument for it…”
That’s when Smith was interrupted.
A win, as he’s then informed, would earn him an automatic spot.
