Smith wins Mid-Amateur and trip to Masters

Nathan Smith sent an iron shot laser true and feather light through 30 mph gusts onto the 18th green Thursday morning and his opponent, Tim Hogarth, said, "Now you're just showing off."

He was kidding, of course. The whole point was that Smith was doing just the opposite. He was playing smart and steady, nothing fancy, in the first half of the U.S. Mid-Amateur 36-hole final match. In the process, he played what Hogarth called "one of the best rounds I've ever seen."

Smith quietly went 5-up before lunch, breezed home to a 7 and 5 win at Atlantic Golf Club in Bridgehampton and was on his way down Magnolia Lane.

The winner of the Mid-Amateur gets an invitation to the Masters, which raised the stakes Thursday. As Hogarth said, "This was like playing a million dollar Nassau. Priceless. And I came out and just tanked it."

And Smith, who will go to Augusta for a third time and second in a row as Mid-Amateur champion, said, "You know, you win one of these and you feel like you hit the lottery. You never imagine that you're going to win it three times."

He was inspired rather than flustered by the thought of returning to the Masters, a dream that wakened him Wednesday night and made it hard to get back to sleep. Smith shot 5-under in a surprisingly dry but seriously blustery morning and never was challenged.

"He played phenomenal, he stuck it right to me," Hogarth said. "He could have given me a break somewhere that maybe would have changed me mentally to think I had more of a chance. But he stuck it right on me, he just overwhelmed me. It was an unbelievable round of golf."

In the morning round, Smith just kept calmly hitting fairways and greens, occasionally making a birdie (he perhaps mercifully settled for par 5 on No. 18 in the morning) and ultimately making history. Jay Sigel, who went on to play on the Champions Tour, is the only other player to win three Mid-Am titles.

"I thought it would be a tough day with the wind, and the last thing I wanted to do was kind of have a foul ball," said the 32-year-old investment adviser from Pittsburgh who had his dad, Larry, 63, caddying. They will be heading south together again in April, as they did this year and in 2004, when Smith was in the threesome for Arnold Palmer's last round at Augusta. "Driving down Magnolia Lane, that's pretty much . . . " he said without having to finish the thought.

Hogarth, a former Masters entrant after winning the U.S. Public Links, knows what he'll be missing. "The Masters is gigantic," he said. "That's what makes this priceless."