Who is Alex Smalley? The 2026 PGA Championship contender whose mom is always watching

Alex Smalley shot a 69 on Friday to put him near the top of the PGA Championship leaderboard. Carl Recine / Getty Images Share articleNEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Maria Smalley is hustling up the right side of the fairway, an urgency to her movement necessitated by her son closing in on the lead at the PGA Championship. “It’s all finally coming together,” she said as she scurries toward the sixth green at Aronimink, where her firstborn eventually got up-and-down for par. But Maria is not just Alex Smalley’s mother. She’s much more than that to the slender 29-year-old who sits at 4 under par at Aronimink, suddenly a top contender to win his first major championship in just his fifth major start. She is Smalley’s former caddie. She is sometimes referred to as his “momager.” And most importantly to the Smalley operation, she masters his intricate statistical system. Maria walks with purpose to get a good vantage point, so she can properly document her son’s round. As the morning wave rolled on, she watched intently for what would turn out to be a rollercoaster of a day. Smalley posted a 33 on his front nine, only for his group to get a slow-play warning from a rules official as they made the turn, immediately followed by three bogeys staining his scorecard. But Smalley pressed on, fighting Aronimink’s gusts and tricky greens to make another two birdies in his final six holes. He ultimately carded a 1-under 69. Good news: Smalley is now just one shot behind tournament leader Maverick McNealy, and all of the context will be in a post-round log available to him before he takes to the course again Saturday afternoon. “I’m very pleased with 4 under. It played really difficult the first couple of days with the wind,” Smalley said. Smalley’s mother has been tracking his tournament round data since his senior year of high school. She did it throughout his Duke career and continued as Smalley rose through the ranks of professional golf. The ritual can be traced back to a college recruiting trip, when a coach told Maria about an app called Shots to Hole. She’s used it for her son ever since. At every event, on every hole, and over every shot, Maria notes down Smalley’s distance to the flag, his club selection, and the wind direction. All sorts of variables are logged if available — altitude, lie, slope. The primary goal is to create an enhanced and what they believe to be a more accurate version of the PGA Tour’s shot-tracking system, ShotLink, so Smalley can evaluate his play with additional information. Then come the iPhone videos. When Smalley wants to review a shot from a previous round or a previous year, Maria has them at the ready. Thousands of videos of Smalley’s swing fill her camera roll. “Luckily, I got a new phone back in December,” she said, “Because my other one, I was constantly backing up and deleting stuff. Sometimes I go back and delete certain ones, but it’s funny, because his coach asked me, ‘Do you have anything from like, 5 years ago?’ and I’m like, yes, I do!” This is the sort of preparation that has led Smalley to put together one of his best runs yet in the professional game. Headed into this week’s PGA Championship, Smalley had four top-10 results this season, including tying for second at the team-format Zurich Classic, and tying for 17th at last week’s Truist Championship. He qualified for the PGA Championship via the Official World Golf Rankings, where he is ranked No. 78. Smalley has quietly gained confidence in both himself and his swing over the last several months. He’s happy with the tempo that he’s honed in his move, trying to emulate Adam Scott, and is ranked 12th in proximity to the hole on the PGA Tour. And he’s slowly starting to adjust to the three-ring circus that is life as a professional golfer. Playing in front of crowds like those packed in at Aronimink is a relatively uncomfortable experience for Smalley. “It’s a different feeling when you have hundreds or thousands of eyeballs on you at once. It can be a little overwhelming. So I just try to go about my business as best as I can and realize that there’s probably people that don’t know who I am, and that’s fine, and I just try to keep going from there,” he said. Smalley prefers to stay under the radar. So when he finds himself in contention, he speaks into the microphone with a timid professionalism, as if interviewing for a summer internship. Golf was always the plan for Smalley, but he committed to Duke, knowing he’d appreciate the rigorous academics, too. He studied environmental science with a focus on climate studies and won the Duke’s 2019 Scholar Athlete of the Year award. His father, Terry, spent 22 years working in the pharmaceutical industry, and now works in medicinal chemistry, teaching as an assistant professor of biochemistry at Wake Forest on the side. Maria received her Ph.D. from Duke in 1995 and worked in chemical analysis: “I used to say, he makes the drugs, and I’d tell him how good of a job he did,” she said. Both parents have caddied for Smalley sporadically throughout his golf career. Smalley graduated from Duke with a 3.6 GPA, All-American honors and three collegiate victories. He made the 2019 Walker Cup team and turned professional shortly after, earning his PGA Tour membership through the Korn Ferry Tour finals in 2021. He’s maintained his card since, posting 15 top-10 finishes in his last five seasons, but has yet to lift a trophy as a professional. Success on a grander stage in the game is not out of reach for Smalley, though he doesn’t like to talk about it. His caddie, Michael Burns, said Smalley does not vocalize results-oriented goals. “We try to stay in the moment as much as possible,” Burns said. As an opportunity to reach the top of the pro golf mountain presents itself this weekend, Smalley will be leaning firmly on that mindset, in addition to his consistent play. And if things don’t pan out? Not to worry. It’ll all be readily available for a full statistical review, thanks to Maria. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms