In January of 2022, as Australia cautiously poked its head out from under the doona of the benighted Covid years, Jed Morgan won the PGA Championship of Australia by a record 11 shots.

And it was very cool indeed.

For here he was, a 22-year-old in his fourth professional start, slaying them all and winning going away. He was a starburst, a phenom. He was our Next Big Thing.

Comparisons were made with the win by 21-year-old Greg Norman, who won the Westlakes Classic in Adelaide in 1976. Both men were big chunks of Queensland, with big blonde heads.

The comparisons did not go unnoticed by Norman himself, who would have seen something of himself in the broad-shouldered Morgan, and signed him to the LIV rebel league.

And Morgan’s golf game went steadily south. His best was T13 in Jeddah and T16 in Singapore. But it all smacked of too much, too soon, and out the door he went, cut from the league end of 2023.

Jed Morgan (right) would be left out of the Ripper GC team end of 2023. PHOTO: Getty Images

Morgan did say he took plenty of “learnings” from a dud 18 months, and hopefully his recent showing in the International Series tournament in Thailand – when he shot 63-68-67-67 to run T12 - is a harbinger of a big ’25 for the 25-year-old.

(Though why the former champion wasn’t at Royal Queensland, instead being cut from the Hong Kong Open, and is this week in the desert nation of Qatar instead of the Melbourne Sandbelt contesting the Australian Open, is a whole other column, we had a crack at explaining some of the gibber-jabber here.)

Regardless, it’s hard to see our latest 22-year-old phenom, Elvis Smylie, following a similar path. He’s here, toiling away, on our “Aussie” tour, which leads directly to the DP World Tour, and onwards from there to the PGA Tour.

It’s what the Australasian Tour offers our players and it’s what they want: ascension to the Big Show in America. David Micheluzzi is aboard the train, as is Kazuma Kobori.

Next up, if he maintains anything like his current form, our Elvis.

The win at RQ netted Smylie $340,000 and sees him lead the PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit. They’ll put him out in a marquee group this Thursday and Friday at Victoria and Kingston Heath. He’ll enjoy the trappings and invitations befitting a winner on the DP World Tour. 

David Micheluzzi (left) dunks his mate Elvis Smylie in celebratory H2O following Smylie's PGA Championship-winning performance at Royal Queensland. PHOTO: Getty Images.

After leading the PGA field on Thursday, Smylie said that he wants what Cameron Smith has, what Jason Day has – a big career in golf, effectively ‘big dog status’ on the world stage among the planet’s best golfers.

It's clear Smylie owns his tennis mum Liz’s work ethic. His golf game under the pump – and under the pump he was at RQ – held up through skill application borne of repetition. It was like he did things automatically, without thinking, without inner analysis of his body.

He just saw the job to do in his mind, and his body did it.

And that, as any champion from any sport will tell you, is the big trick.

Smylie has shown an ability to stay in that fabled “zone”, evidenced by a succession of par-save putts and some stiffed approaches after trouble on championship Sunday.

A dud drive on 18, to a fairway wider than many football fields, saw him whip a big-drawing mid-iron to the front right trap. Then he wafted out the extraction and rolled it out to three feet.

It was flat-out brilliant play – though Smith dumping his approach shot in the same trap gave Smylie some mental wriggle room.

But it was a sandie you’d play in your dreams.

“Elvis played great,” playing partner Marc Leishman (T3, 11-under) said.

“It was a big day for him. His wedge play was good, he putted great ... 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.”

So, the kid’s got game, we can say that. And his head’s on right, too, we can say that. The youth of him, the measured words post-round, perhaps belie his inner steel and will to win.

So, there’s a few elements to him which add up to potentially future excellence. And, yes, I know, don’t mock the poor bastard, only young, long way to go, blah-blah.

But it’s exciting, right? Excuse us the hyperbole. Particularly if it's coming from his long-time caddie and Golf Australia magazine Architecture Editor, Mike Clayton

On the Golf Australia website, Clayton writes of Smylie: “He morphed from Ben Hogan on the front nine to Severiano Ballesteros on the back”.

“It was more stressful and complicated than necessary,” Clayton adds. “But his last four years as a pro, the failures, the close losses, as well as the win in the [Western Australia Open], had prepared him well for what was, to this stage of his fledgling career, his first big test.”

Safe to say he passed.

Clayton reckons he’s “long thought him our best young player”. Mat Goggin says Smylie “hits the ball well enough to play in the United States”. 

Fellow lefty Nick O'Hern says Smylie has a great team around him, including his parents Peter and Liz. O'Hern is not overly surprised Smylie did so well at RQ.

"I saw first-hand the improvements he’s made, and how they’ve made an impact, both on the TV coverage of the WA PGA [at Kalgoorlie] and after I'd MC’d the BMW Golf Cup final in Adelaide, I played with him at Kooyonga.

"He flew to Perth next day and, not surprisingly, won the WA Open."

Adds O'Hern: "Hard to believe he’s only 22. He has an old head on young shoulders. He's one of the most impressive young men you could meet, on and off the course.

"It's great to see him on his way.

"Sky's the limit from here."