The 22-year-old Australian has a shot at the ISPS HANDA Australian Open this week at Kingston Heath and Victoria, but by Monday he will be enroute to South Africa for the Nedbank Challenge in Sun City.

It’s a $US6 million tournament with a limited field of 66 and it represents his future as a world player.
All of it has come as a result of winning the co-sanctioned BMW Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland last Sunday, holding off no less a star than Cameron Smith. As a tournament winner he is now a full DP World Tour member for the rest of this season and all of next.

It has been a whirlwind for the Golf Australia Rookie Squad member, including a night at home on the Gold Coast followed by a 7.30am flight to Melbourne. He’s opened a taste of the numerous congratulatory messages on his phone, and one that stuck out was from Ivan Lendl, the eight-times Grand Slam singles tennis champion who is a friend of the family and who watched the coverage from overseas.

But he has not touched a drop of alcohol; he fits the modern template of the golfer-athlete. “I’ve been quite on my best behaviour,” he said. “There’ll be a time to celebrate, but for now I’m really looking forward to doing my best here at Australian Open.”

Smylie’s new-found fame has piqued some media interest particularly in his name, which comes from his father Peter’s Elvis Presley obsession. At Royal Queensland last week, a spectator asked him to sing but he politely declined.

His physique – pencil-thin with no dramatic signs of change despite the weights regime he has put in place with Golf Australia’s strength and conditioning guru Luke Mackey – is another point of interest. He still hasn’t reached 80 kilograms despite his substantial height, and the chicken and rice diet that amounts to “eating as much as I can”.

He looks something like the kid who won the Australian Junior championship in 2019 at the peak of a stellar amateur career.

Smylie is negotiating his new world a step at a time and focusing on his national Open in the Melbourne sandbelt this week, where he will again take on Australia’s best along with numerous European players and the likes of defending champion Joaquin Niemann.

“I think the biggest thing that I’ve spoken to, especially with the team that I have around me is not to get too complacent with what I’ve achieved so far,” he said. “Obviously it’s been a dream start to the Australian season for me, but there’s more that I want achieve this year and what my team have done a really good job with is easing the reins a little bit and focusing on what needs to be focused on. And that’s this week for me and making sure that I’m doing all the stuff that I need to do by the time I tee it up on Thursday.”

The left-handed Smylie is now eyeing the DP World Tour’s Middle East swing in January, but he also wants to come home to achieve his original goal for this summer – winning the Order of Merit on the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia, which concludes in March.

Two years after his first, faltering foray into Europe, the world is suddenly opening up for him. And quickly.

PHOTO: Elvis Smylie addresses the media at Kingston Heath today. Image: Daniel Pockett