Kaufman making his Masters debut

A hometown favorite is playing in The Masters this April.

Smylie Kaufman, former Vestavia Hills High School standout, will compete in the revered golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club, April 7-10.

Kaufman has become a regular on the PGA Tour in 2016 season, and notched his first PGA win at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas in October 2015. With one fell swoop, Kaufman’s victory qualified him for The Masters, the PGA Championship, the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, and The Players Championship.

Not bad.

“I did the best I could today. I posted a number and it stuck,” Kaufman said following his first PGA Tour victory, in which his score held up for a large portion of the afternoon. 

This will be the second major tournament for Kaufman, as he participated in the 2014 U.S. Open, his first event on the PGA Tour.

Kaufman was cut after the first two rounds of that U.S. Open, but has used that result to propel himself to success on the Web.com Tour last season and now on the PGA Tour this season.

On the Web.com tour in 2015, Kaufman participated in 20 events, picking up his first professional win at the United Leasing Championship in early May, defeating the field by five shots. He tied a course record in the third round of a stellar event for the rookie.

The tour taught Kaufman the specific traits it takes to be a successful professional, and the lessons learned are allowing him to launch what has the potential to be a solid career.

“The Web.com was perfect for me,” he said. “It taught me how to travel, how to prepare, how to make a cut, and how to handle rounds that were not going in the right direction.”

He made the cut in half of those tournaments, finishing second in the Price Cutter Charity, and tying for fourth in the Chitimacha Louisiana Open and Mexico Championship.

Each of his fourth place finishes were the consecutive tournaments Kaufman played in leading up to his win, and he wound up seventh in the end-of-season Web.com Tour rankings to earn his official membership on the PGA Tour.

Kaufman hung around for all four rounds of his first eight tournaments of the year. In early March, he put on another strong showing for the youngster, finishing in a tie for eighth at the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship.

In college at LSU, Kaufman earned six top-10 finishes in four seasons on the team, including a second place mark at the 2014 SEC Championship, leading LSU to a runner-up finish in his senior campaign.

At the prep level, the Rebel golf team did not earn a state championship during Kaufman’s time there. But he was a part of a state title during his high school days. He played on the 2009 state championship team under coach George Hatchett, who is retiring at the end of this school year.