Austin Smotherman posts 62 to lead Cognizant Classic

austin smotherman matched the best score of his career with a 9-under 62 in the first round of the Cognizant Classic, taking a one-stroke lead and drawing attention after a stretch of six consecutive birdies. The round makes him a day-one frontrunner and renews focus on whether he can convert early form into a breakthrough on tour.

• Smotherman shot 9-under 62 and leads by one stroke after round one.
• He produced six straight birdies from holes 7–12 and tapped in on the par-5 finishing hole.
• This 62 matches his career-best first-round score earlier in his career.

austin smotherman hot start

Smotherman's 62 left him one stroke clear of Nico Echavarria after the opening round. The score matched the best of his professional career and made him the seventh player to break 63 at PGA National in this event. He had a less fruitful outing at this tournament in a prior appearance, when rounds of 70 and 76 left him four shots outside the cut, making Thursday's turnaround notable for its contrast.

Austin Smotherman's six straight birdies

The round's defining run came with six consecutive birdies on holes 7 through 12, a sequence that produced the momentum Smotherman needed. He finished by tapping in for a birdie on the par-5 18th; the 62 is the second such score of his PGA TOUR career, the other occurring in the first round of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. This week he is experimenting without a line on the ball to see what it does for his putting.

Background and Korn Ferry wins

Smotherman is a California native who played four years at Southern Methodist University alongside Bryson DeChambeau. He turned professional in 2016 and has recorded multiple wins on feeder tours, including a victory at the Mexican Open while competing on the PGA Tour Latinoamérica and three professional wins on the Korn Ferry Tour: the Simmons Bank Open and two later wins in June that expanded his Korn Ferry résumé. He earned All-Conference honors as a collegiate player and has a largely self-taught development arc; he estimates fewer than ten lessons by his junior year of high school and learned much of his game playing at local facilities.

Smotherman held a first-round lead one other time previously and has not yet produced a victory in his initial 81 TOUR starts. If he can sustain the scoring level that produced Thursday's 62 and convert a day-one lead into a final-round position near the top of the leaderboard, it would represent the first TOUR win of his career. For now, the combination of a career-matching number, a long birdie run and a renewed lead gives him a clear story line to monitor as the tournament progresses.