This newsletter isn’t about Lowry… but I feel for the guy. The stretch from 15-17 at PGA National is tough. I’ve played it and as someone who draws the ball… it can feel impossible in the wind.

To go into that stretch trying to win a tournament in front of your daughter for the first time and to have it come unraveled. Man… That hurts.

For us mere mortals… its a reminder that golf is hard. Even when you feel untouchable…

You are always one good swing from having it all figured out…

And one bad swing from never finding it… Onwards.

If you're following us on Instagram, you know that our tournament preview highlighted Austin Smotherman as one of the best data fits for PGA National, even if he was not the biggest name in the field.

His strokes gained profile lined up well with what the Champion course demands, especially his ball striking and ability to handle tougher setups. He proved us right from the start, opening with a bogey free 62 on Thursday and following it with more solid golf to take a three shot lead into the weekend.

The story of the weekend, however, was one of incredibly thin margins. Smotherman did not collapse. He simply did not quite do enough over the final two rounds to fend off a winning charge from behind. He finished the week two shots shy of the title for his best finish ever on the PGA Tour. Smotherman had positive strokes gained in every category and a strokes gained card that was just shy of a winning performance.

Across four rounds Smotherman finished in the green in all four strokes gained categories, gaining on the field off the tee, on approach, around the greens, and with the putter. That is exactly what you expect from someone who is in the mix all week on a demanding course like PGA National. His opening 62 set the tone as an exhibition in ball striking, hitting an astonishing 17 of 18 greens in regulation (pros average 13-14). Even the lone green he missed was a tactical success; he left himself in a perfect spot with plenty of green to work with, leading to an easy up-and-down that kept the card clean and proved he was ready to go the distance.

His scoring cooled slightly over the weekend, but his underlying numbers remained solid. Saturday’s round still added positive strokes gained overall, and Sunday, while quieter, was not a blow up. When you zoom out to the entire week, the gap between winning and finishing second is small enough that it makes sense to ask a different question: Where did those two shots actually go?

That is where the Tangent Four comes in. Instead of just staring at total strokes gained, the Tangent Four looks at four specific mistake types: three putts, two chips, penalties, and recoveries. It is a fast way to find the avoidable errors that quietly decide tournaments.

Smotherman’s opening 62 is what a dream Tangent Four card looks like. No three putts. No two chips. No penalties. No messy recoveries. Just clean golf that lets his strengths show up. Over the next two rounds, the pattern changes. In both round two and round three he recorded one three putt and one two chip. In the final round he added another three putt. That is five Tangent Four events over the last three days, in a tournament he lost by two.

Any one of those mistakes, handled cleanly, could have tightened the gap. Take just two of the 5 Tangent Four mistakes off the board, and the math of the week looks very different. This is not about expecting perfection. It is about seeing how a few “simple” mistakes on the card can be the difference between winning and losing at the PGA Tour level.

Smotherman’s tournament is a great reminder for Tangent users that even the best in the world are trying to eliminate manageable mistakes. He put four rounds under par together on one of the most demanding courses on the PGA TOUR, including a 62 that ties the best score of his career, and yet there were still opportunities to work on cleaning up the Tangent Four. We all three putt, we all two chip, we all make mistakes… It’s about continuing to find ways to eliminate the mistakes to have our best results.

This may not have been a tournament victory, but it was certainly a moral victory. Smotherman had the best finish of his career by minimizing mistakes.

For most of us, a few Tangent Four mistakes aren’t costing us a PGA Tour event, but they could be costing us our chance to break 90… or 80… or even 70.

On good days or bad days, the Tangent Four gives us a set of avoidable errors we can try to minimize as much as possible. Whether that results in a 62 or a 92, a golfer who manages these moments knows they are avoiding the frustrating mistakes. It’s about the satisfaction of knowing you squeezed the most out of your game on that particular day. Pay close attention to these metrics when you look at your round reviews in the app; this low hanging fruit is the easiest way to use data to actually improve.

The other lesson from Smotherman’s week is about perspective. It is rare that you’ll ever look back on a round and say “that was as low as I could have gone”. It is in our nature to count the ones we left out there, not the ones we stole with a long putt or a friendly bounce.

We’re always looking for ways to improve, but sometimes we have to appreciate the progress. Smotherman definitely made progress this week.

If you want to make more progress in your game, subscribe to Tangent and start tracking your golf to improve faster.

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