Smith leads locals by shot in Ultimate Game
Byron Smith takes the lead into today’s final round, but two locals will be with him in the last group.
Ken Jarner and Scott Piercy each shot a 2-under-par 68 on Thursday to put pressure on Smith, whose 67 makes him the player to beat in The Ultimate Game at the Wynn Golf & Country Club.
The tournament winner receives a $2 million check, the richest in golf history.
Jarner, 43, figured to have an edge over the 12-man field because he caddies at the Wynn Las Vegas course. Perhaps his course knowledge helped him make a late run with birdies on two of the last three holes.
“I’m very nervous,” he said. “I don’t get to play competitive golf enough to where I can lock out all that stuff, but today in the middle of my round when it was going sour I just said, ‘This is the time when I can showcase my talent.’ “
Piercy, 28, is used to high-level competition, having played in three PGA Tour events this year. The Bonanza High School graduate competes full time on the Hooters Tour and is 19th on the money list with more than $22,000.
Such experience, he said, should be an advantage.
“I’ve played in Phoenix, where there are 600,000 people there for the week (and) playing for pretty good money,” Piercy said.
Smith, 26, plays competitively as well. He tied for fifth in the Canadian Tour Championship last season and made the cut in six of the final seven tournaments.
Smith won the Corona Mazatlan Classic on April 29 as part of the Canadian Tour’s warm-weather swing.
“It was a pretty big highlight in my career because it’s been a pretty steady progression up to this point,” Smith said. “I felt like my game was getting ready to really kind of break through. So that was good to win that tournament and get some confidence going and actually solidify all the work that I’ve been putting in.”
He had to work Thursday, twice coming back from bad holes. Smith went bunker to bunker on No. 14 and double bogeyed, and he three-putted the 17th for a bogey.
But he followed both holes with birdies.
“I just get (angry) and try to really buckle down and focus on the next shot and execute it,” Smith said. “That’s always been a strength of my game is to kind of come back … after a mistake like that.”
In fact, he said his mental approach to the sport is helped by the 2 1/2-year break he took from golf. Smith played two years at Pepperdine before stepping away to concentrate on his philosophy major.
“I was getting real burnt out with golf,” Smith said. “I wasn’t enjoying golf practice every day. You get to that point and realize, ‘Shoot, there’s a lot I don’t know.’ And I don’t want to be one of these guys that’s 32 years old and still trying to play golf and realizing you can’t cut it, and what do you know? Nothing but golf.
“In the long run, I really do think it helped me mentally because I came back fresh. I came back with a new frame of mind, almost a new understanding for the game.”
