It took Smotherman 100 starts.

PGA TOUR ^. BANK OF UTAH CHAMPIONSHIP

Austin Smotherman showed up at Black Desert 79th in the FedEx Cup, inside the top 100 but one bad month from sweating his card. He left with his first PGA Tour win in his 100th start, a two-year exemption, and a likely top-60 spot. That top-60 spot gets him into the $20 million signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera next year.

It got messy. He plugged one under a bunker lip on 13, made double, and watched Trace Crowe drain a 40-foot eagle to cut it to one. Smotherman answered by driving 14 to six feet and knocking his approach on 15 to six feet again. He missed both putts. He still finished 26 under, a tournament record.

100 starts. 26 under. Two years of job security.

DP WORLD TOUR ^. ALFRED DUNHILL LINKS

Adrian Meronk hadn’t won in 1,078 days and sat 141st in the Race to Dubai, playing for his card. He shot 67 at St Andrews on Sunday, came from two back, and beat Casey Jarvis by one at 20 under. The swing came at 11 and 12: Jarvis failed to get up and down, Meronk holed from 11 feet. He also won the team title with Tom Chaplin, the third player in the event’s 25 years to sweep both.

This is the same tournament where he made his pro debut a decade ago. He said he thought about Tiger and Jack crossing the Swilcan Bridge on his walk up 18. Then he cried, and admitted he never does.

LIV GOLF ^. CHAPTER 11

BC Partners made it official Monday: an initial investment toward $300 million to pull LIV out of Chapter 11, with players getting equity in the league and the teams. Nice pitch. The catch is the calendar. BC set an Oct. 13 deadline for a “requisite number of players” to sign new deals or it can walk, and nobody has said what that number is.

On Wednesday, LIV asks a Trenton judge to let it reject or assume player contracts, Jon Rahm’s included. My take: equity in a league that might liquidate is a hard sell to a guy who signed for guaranteed money.

Seven days. One undisclosed number. That’s LIV 2.0.

ALSO THIS WEEK

LOOKING AHEAD

The Tour lands at Yokohama Country Club in Yokohama, Japan, for the Baycurrent Classic, Oct. 8-11. Keep an eye on the golf balls as much as the golf: Titleist reps will be on the range all week starting the global tour rollout of the 2027 Pro V1 and Pro V1x. Name to watch: Hideki Matsuyama, the home-crowd story any time the Tour plays in Japan.

The 7-iron in Srixon’s new ZXi5+ is 29.5 degrees. Golfmagic’s tester saw 169 to 173 yards total, with a softer feel than she expected. The catch is spin, 4,000 to 5,000 rpm, and a big carry-to-total gap. Great on a long par 4. Bad into a firm green. The ZXi5 and ZXi7 run $1,499.99 for seven steel irons. If holding greens is your problem, this won’t fix it.

Two of the year’s best drivers just got cheaper. Independent Golf Reviews lists the Ping G440 SFT and G440 LST at $449 after a price cut, while the G440 K and most of the field sit at $649. The SFT was their slicing tester’s straightest driver. The LST is their most underrated pick: a lower flight for faster swingers that still forgives. The TaylorMade Qi4D won their test overall. It didn’t win by $200. Get fit on both before you pay full price.

ALSO THIS WEEK

The PGA Tour Champions SAS Championship returns to Prestonwood next week, and the best night to go is Friday, Oct. 16. Fairway to Fun runs 4 to 7:30 p.m. with food from Big Mike’s BBQ, Cousins Maine Lobster, Two Roosters and others, plus a fireworks finish. Families that finish the course get a free one-week YMCA pass. New this year: Fairway Forecast, an SAS-built app where you can pick holes 17 and 18 for prizes.

The HBCU Invitational runs Oct. 17-18 alongside the SAS Championship, its fifth year. Fifteen teams from 12 historically Black colleges and universities play for $30,000 in honoraria for their programs. If you’re at Prestonwood that weekend anyway, go find these kids on the course. It’s the most fun golf on the property nobody’s talking about.

Forest Creek in Pinehurst reopened its South Course after a seven-month rebuild of the 1996 Fazio design. New greens and bunkers, about 14 miles of drainage pipe, and the original bentgrass greens ripped out for ultra-dwarf Bermuda. That’s one more Sandhills club betting summer greens matter more than tradition. It’s private, so if you know a member, this fall is the time to ask.

North Raleigh Rotary runs a three-hole virtual tournament at West Raleigh’s Drive Shack this Wednesday, Oct. 7, at 5:30 p.m. It’s $100 for a golfer, $250 for a family, or $50 if you just want dinner and heckling rights. Andrews was a longtime Raleigh Golf Association member who started the club’s golf tournament, and the money goes to youth programs and scholarships. Sign up at jackandrewsgolftournament.com.

The 28th Meredith College Golf Classic tees off at 10 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 29, at Wildwood Green in Raleigh. Registration is open, and team and hole sponsorships are still available. Every dollar goes to Meredith athletics. A weekday round at Wildwood in late October for a good cause is an easy yes.

ALSO THIS WEEK

ON THE TEE SHEET

TWO WAYS TO KEEP THIS GOING

The next time a buddy picks a Triangle course you have never played, you will know which tees to play, where the trouble is, and what the locals actually pay before you leave the parking lot. That is the Triangle Golf Guide: 23 courses deep, plus the curated sim spots and the membership math worth knowing. Less than a range bucket, at $5.99.

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