Gold Coaster Quayle matched the low-round of the tournament to finish third at the BMW Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland, rolling in a putt he estimated to be 115 feet from four metres off the front of the 18th green to close out a round of 8-under 63.

His 11-under total held the clubhouse lead for three hours, eventual champion Elvis Smylie (14-under) and runner-up Cameron Smith (12-under) in the final group the only players to move past him by day’s end.

In his 16 most recent starts, Quayle had made just one cut and withdrawn twice, his career stagnating as he struggled with the solitude he experienced as one of very few Aussies playing the Japan Golf Tour this year.

Seeking a sounding board, Quayle turned to Adam Scott’s father, Phil, who advised using the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia to find a pathway back to a major international tour.

“I skipped the last six events in Japan to come back and focus here instead,” said a jubilant Quayle after his Sunday flourish.

“I just wasn’t enjoying it. I wasn’t having fun. I didn’t feel like I was in an environment where I could be the best that I can be.

“I feel like if I can create an environment where I feel happy, I feel confident, I feel comfortable, I feel like I can really kick on and do some really great things.

“Phil Scott actually was pretty crucial in consulting me with a lot of this stuff. He was a massive advocate for me coming back here and playing this tour and committing to this over the next six months as a bit of a re-route in my career.

“Hopefully this is a nice step in the right direction.”

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His third-place finish in a tournament co-sanctioned with the DP World Tour certainly sent his world ranking and position on the domestic Order of Merit in the right direction.

The 30-year-old will tee it up at this week’s ISPS HANDA Australian Open ranked 617 in the world (up 260 places) and seventh on the Order of Merit (up 119 spots).

It has suddenly put a DP World Tour card for a top-three Order of Merit finish within reach, and given the two-time PGA Tour of Australasia winner a much-needed injection of confidence.

“The only thing I’m really thinking about right now is just that I feel like my good stuff is good enough and I feel like I just need to be happy and comfortable and confident for that to happen,” added Quayle, who missed the cut at both the Queensland PGA and Ford NSW Open.

“This reaffirms that and it also shows me that I’m not that far away. I don’t feel like I’m a crazy person thinking, yeah, no, it’s not far away, even though the results suggested otherwise.

“It just gives me that trust that I’m doing the right things and it also really reaffirms that I’m the sort of person that loves being around people.

“I’m a social sort of person. I love chatting with people. I love being around people.

“Coming back here these last few weeks playing in Australia, I feel like I have so much support.

“I had so many of my friends come out yesterday and today. It just felt awesome, feeling like I had people around me rather than me just feeling like I’m alone out there.

“It was awesome.”

It’s what we expected when he burst onto the professional scene as a 19-year-old more than three years ago and very nearly won first time out.

He’d finished second as an amateur the week prior.

It was what was predicted as his potential and elite sporting bloodlines flourished as a teenager under the guidance of Ian Triggs on the Gold Coast.

Yet professional sport is littered with talented teens who struggle to transition into stable playing careers.

Smylie is no different, having used up sponsor invitations to play a dozen events on the DP World Tour before ever having the status to be in the field on his own merit.

Before this week, the first event of the 2025 DP World Tour season, Smylie had played 12 DP World Tour events outside Australia across three seasons.

He cashed a cheque in just one.

Something had to change, and change quickly, so he didn’t suffer the same fate of so many who disappear into oblivion.

He handed the keys to West Australian coach Ritchie Smith and surrounded himself with a proven team that now includes Luke Mackey (strength and conditioning), Marty McInnes (physiotherapist) and Michael Lloyd (mental coach).

His body has also undergone a transformation, almost five kilograms added so that a powerful swing was grounded in stability.

It was evident at the WA PGA Championship in October that something had changed.

Smylie carried himself differently. The skinny kid with a silky swing had been supplanted by a young man who looked in control of his own destiny.

He led by three through 52 holes at Kalgoorlie before finishing one shot shy of the playoff.

A week later he demonstrated his exceptional ball-striking in ferocious winds to win a playoff against Jak Carter and claim the WA Open at Mandurah Country Club.

If that was a coming of age, Sunday’s showdown with Cameron Smith and Marc Leishman put the golf world on notice that he is ready to go toe-to-toe with any player on the planet.

Smylie had half a dozen opportunities to fade from the top of the leaderboard in front of thousands of Smith’s faithful fans on Sunday yet declined each and every one.

He sent a message to his idol, no less, with two birdies out of the blocks and entered the back nine of what had become a 54-hole sprint with a three-stroke lead.

Time and again he conjured recoveries that can only have exasperated Smith, a major champion and former world No.2 known to inflict short game wizardry of his own.

Smylie in no way disrespected his elders; he simply played as though he was now one of them.

Some of that stems from exposure to the highest levels of sport at a young age, mother Liz and father Peter both highly accomplished professional tennis players.

As Liz stood to the side watching her son stand over a four-foot putt to change his life with tears in her eyes, Elvis stayed resolute.

Just.

“It was close. I saw Mum crying before that last putt but I wanted to keep my bogey-free round going.”

The job wasn’t done until he stepped up and calmly completed the mission that he and his team devised and which has now secured a place on the DP World Tour for the next two years.

At 22 years of age, he suddenly looks the complete package, an exceptional athlete with a mentality well beyond his years.

“I knew that it wasn’t going to be smooth sailing,” Smylie said of his first three years as a professional.

“Everything that has happened in my career so far, it’s been a blessing in disguise.

“It was just my time. Everything that happened today happened for a reason.

“I’m a Christian and I believe in God and I knew that He was looking down on me today.

“Everything that happened today happened for a reason and it was my time today, definitely.”

What the 2022 Open champion didn’t expect to happen so quickly was having a scholarship recipient pip him for a major Aussie title like his fellow Queenslander did at Royal Queensland Golf Club.

Smylie’s bogey-free 67 to Smith’s 69 under the pressure of the final round gave him a two-shot victory, his second on the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia in the 2024-25 season and his first DP World Tour success, propelling his career to the next level.

It might be the first of many duels to come, providing another fascinating sub-plot for Australian golf.

“Helping Elvis out along the way is really cool,” Smith said.

“It’s a long way to come from being a junior golfer to a professional golfer and I think he just keeps making the right steps.

“You could really tell even when he was there that week (in the United States) that he was a hard worker so that’s a really good trait.

“He should enjoy this win, but also just keep working really hard because he’s still got a really long way to go.

“He had such a great round, he putted unbelievable, and yeah, it was awesome to watch.”

The other member of the final group, Victorian Marc Leishman, finished in a tie for third after a final round of 69, three shots back from the champion.

“Elvis played great. It was a big day for him,” Leishman said.

“His wedge play was good, he putted great with those key putts (for par saves) on 12, 15 and elsewhere.

“He took his medicine when he had to. He just made the right decisions and hit the right shots which is what you have to do to win. Impressive.”

After making the cut on the number, Lee was in the third group out at 6:49am on Sunday at Royal Queensland Golf Club, hundreds of fans on hand to see the 26-year-old in action before he heads to Melbourne.

Lee responded with a round of 5-under 67 that briefly elevated him inside the top 10, the final group of Cam Smith, Elvis Smylie and Marc Leishman starting their rounds as he signed his scorecard.

It is a positive step forward for a drawcard who has had trouble bending down after suffering a freak injury in his hotel earlier in the week.

“It was just a freak accident,” said Lee.

“I literally just turned in bed and something popped.

“It’s getting a lot better, but I still can’t bend down to read putts. I was half kneeling.

“This is the first time I’m telling anyone but it’s getting better and hopefully next week I can do that, but that’s the reason why I can’t bend down.

“I can fully swing a club at whatever miles per hour but I can’t bend down, which is really astonishing. So it’s a good injury, I guess.”

Twelve months ago, Lee produced one of the most electrifying performances in championship history, his chip-in eagle at the par-5 ninth a pivotal moment that will be replayed for decades.

It was why he was pleased to give his loyal fan base something to cheer as well as build towards next week’s ISPS HANDA Australian Open.

“It’s obviously amazing,” Lee added.

“Two days, before seven o’clock and there’s hundreds of people out here, which is amazing to see.

“I’m not anywhere near the lead and these guys are supporting me.

“Everyone’s out there now and they’re still waiting for me.

“It’s very special to have that support and that’s a reason why I come back here and play.”

Photo: Dan Peled/PGA of Australia

So much so, that the partner has agreed to do it all again on Sunday.

In a just a few years, the party hole has become synonymous with Royal Queensland and the staging of the BMW Australian PGA Championship.

The stands are bigger, the noise from the elevated decks surrounding the green is louder, the DJ keeps the music pumping and golfers are more prepared for this unique diversion from the regular rhythm of the round.

You had golfers like Daniel Gale urging more noise from the fans even before he teed off. He promptly plonked his tee shot two metres from the pin and grinned broadly. He should have taken a bow.

Aussie Cam Davis hit a near-perfect 52-degree gap wedge to just 15 centimetres when he reached the hole at 8am in just the second group of the day to play the hole.

There was generous applause from the few early risers in the stands. It was nothing like the throng of party-lovers, Hawaiian shirt aficionados, Scottish cooks in chef hats and so many others roaring by early afternoon in the sun.

The Davis shot stood the test as the best shot on 17 for the day, although England’s Marco Penge bounced one by the flag to near point-blank putting range.

"If Scottsdale recreated that, that would be tremendous" 😆

HUGE review from @JDayGolf about the Dabble Party Hole at the 17th Hole 🥳 #AusPGA pic.twitter.com/Vz3m2PQIKY

— PGA of Australia (@PGAofAustralia) November 23, 2024

How do we describe the party hole? It’s like a separate event within the broader tournament.

It’s like a Powerplay on steroids in a T20 cricket match when the action heightens, a golden point finale in the NRL or a penalty shootout in football.

As Marc Leishman said after his own birdie there: “I enjoy it. It’s just good that people who might not otherwise go to the golf find it a really cool experience.

“I love that it’s a short par 3, too. And it was a makeable pin placement where guys were definitely scaring the hole (with their shots).”

That is the beauty of the 17th at RQ. It’s the shortest hole on the course at 125m and was playing at just 115m at the front of the green on Saturday.

You expect most hole-in-one promotions with a big prize to have the hole cut in a tough spot as if behind a bank vault door to protect it. Not so at RQ. It was gettable.

It had protection with a hump just on the green that twisted balls left – as it did the tee shot of American Harry Higgs – who was close to hitting a pearler.

Higgs still finished the hole with a smile. One fan with a can shouted: “Great to have you in Australia, brother.”

It was a far tougher par 3 over water, with a big bucks hole-in-prize prize, that was first introduced to the Australian PGA at Royal Pines nearly a decade ago.

That played to 176m on the back tier with all sorts of undulations protecting it.

When Mat Goggin got within a metre of a windfall with his 7-iron in 2015, one wit shouted: “Matty, you could nearly have bought Tasmania.”

That’s the party hole. It brings out the fun of sport. The players are happy to buy in, too.

Cam Smith fed his wedge down off the higher ridge on the green to inside six feet. He sunk the putt for birdie and got his arms moving to urge more from the crowd.

They happily obliged. He feigned throwing his ball to the crowd, as is tradition, and walked off with it instead.

Playing partner Jason Day gave the hole a positive comparison to the boisterous par 3 party hole at TPC Scottsdale, where the Phoenix Open is played annually.

“I think the music is great, kind of drowns out the crowd, and I think Scottsdale just doesn’t do it enough,” Day said.

“That was actually really fun. I think the crowd were very respectful and you could tell they were all having a good time. Hats off to the PGA for making a party hole.”

The crowd loving Cam on the Dabble Party Hole 🥳@dabblecomau | #AusPGA pic.twitter.com/YUALp4OKoT

— PGA of Australia (@PGAofAustralia) November 23, 2024

It’s also a hole to celebrate golfers. Australian golf stalwarts Rod Pampling and John Senden are both 50-plus and play on the Champions Tour these days.

Both gave fans lovely birdies on the 17th and the crowd responded generously.

The fans had the fill… 35 birdies in all on Saturday.

Davis ruled on the day. The music piped through the speakers at 8am was perfect with, “Let The Sunshine In.”

It did, finally, and the crowd on the 17th loved it.

There will be a full house back for more on Sunday.