As Alex Smalley leads PGA, his mother’s role gets attention, too

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — As Alex Smalley walked onto the grounds of Aronimink Golf Club on Sunday, an increasingly familiar figure walked beside him:

His mother, Maria.

Increasingly familiar to the general public, I should say. Alex has obviously known Maria for all 29 years of his life, but as the World No. 78 has played his way into the 54-hole lead at this week’s PGA Championship, the rest of the world has taken notice, too.

Maria is an accomplished chemist who got her doctorate from Duke, but she’s given up her full-time gig for a combo role as Smalley’s statistician, manager and more. She can be found just ahead of Smalley as he plays, recording every swing. That’s undoubtedly a tougher proposition this weekend as he plays in front of tens of thousands rather than the relative anonymity of PGA Tour weeks.

On the PGA Tour, it’s common for family members to be tournament attendees, and plenty of pros have family members involved with their business or even their golf swing. Two-time PGA winner Justin Thomas worked with his father Mike for much of his career, as did Xander Schauffele’s with his father, Stefan, as does Cameron Young with his father, David, to cite just three of many examples.

But you’d be hard-pressed to find a more present team member than Maria, who, having recorded every one of her son’s swings, loads the data into an app for later analysis.

An Athletic story detailed her involvement, which dates back to Smalley’s competitive rounds in high school and in college at Duke.

A 2023 PGA Tour interview with Maria further detailed her role.

“I do his business stuff, I do his stats. That’s what I do when I’m texting all the time on the course,” she said during the 2023 John Deere Classic, where Smalley finished tied for second. “It helps to keep me focused so my head’s not racing and I’m not just going crazy. Gives me something to do.”

So on the biggest day of his professional career, holding a two-stroke lead heading to Sunday, it was no surprise to see Smalley walk side by side with his mother as he hunts his first PGA Tour victory of any kind.

After his third round, Smalley listed his on-site team this week: his caddie Michael Burns (a live wire who complements Smalley’s even demeanor) his golf coach (who was here through Thursday), his agent Chris Kosiba (who stayed at their rental before his father arrived), his physio Dr. Harry Sese, his father Terry, who flew in Saturday morning, and Maria, who has been here throughout.

“I’ll just try to treat it just like any other tournament night for a round tomorrow like I typically would,” he said.

Asked about his mother’s role, Smalley offered further detail.

“Yeah, obviously I’m very lucky to have both of my parents be on the team with me,” he said. “My dad and I traveled quite a bit when I was younger. He would be the one that would take me to the golf tournaments, junior golf tournaments. My mom would stay back home with my sister.

“My dad still works now, so now, in the professional stage of my career, my mom has been traveling with me. We use a statistics program, and she kind of keeps tabs on that side of things. I make notes on my hole location sheet of what club I hit, how far I have to the hole, the putt distance, the break direction, all that, and she kind of plugs all that into the stat system.

“I don’t really look at it that often. I don’t know if she really does, honestly, either. I think she does it more so for the golf coach, to kind of give him highlights of, ‘Okay, he’s making a lot of his right-to-left putts, but he’s missing a lot of his left-to-right putts low,’ maybe something like that.

“She likes to stay ahead out on the golf course. She takes videos of me when I’m out competing in a tournament. If she sees something, she might tell me later that night like, ‘Hey, your tempo seemed a little quick today. What did that feel like?’ Or she’ll send them to my golf coach as well so he can kind of see things.

“Yeah, that’s, honestly, what she does. I’m very lucky to have the team I do behind me. There’s a number of people in my team, and she’s just one of them.”

Smalley’s parents live in Greensboro, N.C. He lived with them post-college but recently bought a house nearby, allowing him to continue playing out of Sedgefield Country Club.

“I obviously dreamed of this as a kid, and it’s funny, [the PGA] is the Wanamaker trophy, and when I was in college, I stayed in the Wanamaker dorm for three years,” Smalley said. “So my parents and I have been joking that maybe this would be a tournament that I would win just because of that fact.”

And if he can finish off the 2026 PGA Championship, they’ll be right there to see the joke become reality.