PALM BEACH GARDENS — It was a happy homecoming week for Benjamin alum Andie Smith. Duke’s rookie golfer landed at PGA National Resort last weekend to compete with the Blue Devils in the NCAA Palm Beach Regional for her first postseason tournament in the sport’s capital.
Leading Duke with a three-day total of 215 and low round of 69 to close out the tournament, Smith helped the No. The 25-ranked program bounced back from third place on the second day for a second-place team finish on Wednesday. Michigan State took the top spot by three strokes with a team score of 8 over.
Only two strokes shy of tying for first with Louisiana State’s Latanna Stone and the Spartans’ Brooke Biermann, Smith placed fourth individually.
The 20-year-old Hobe Sound native recalled the moment she found out her team would be making the trip to her stomping grounds in South Florida.
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“It was a one-out-of-six chance to get PGA and I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but when I saw it I literally screamed,” Smith said. “To see familiar faces in my friends that went on to play in college and my local family, it’s really great.”
Chock-full of pride, golf watchers from Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast alike have followed Smith from when she started playing at age 3 to securing her offer to Duke at just 15 — or her final season on varsity in 2021 when she shot a 6-under 138 for a long-awaited Class 1A state championship at The Benjamin School after two years of finishing in the top 5 with The Pine School.
She knew it was going to be another week for the books from the first day of play Monday on the Champion Course when she penciled in a hole-in-one — the second of her career — on No. 7.
“I actually didn’t see it,” Smith said of the shot. “I just heard someone scream from behind the green and everybody around me said, ‘I think you got it in the hole.'”
Day two, however, suggested that Smith’s “welcome home” party may offer a little less pomp and circumstance.
She finished the front nine 2-under, but the infamous Bear Trap would eventually have its way with whipping winds in the forecast. Smith went 3-over on the back nine, ending the day 1-over 72 and tied for eighth.
“I had a really great period in the fall and going through the spring and the postseason has been a really big lesson. Just to share it with a great team and a great family at a school where I’ve found a second home means a lot,” Smith said.
With nine birdies on Day Three, going 3-under on the front nine, Smith propelled herself right back up to the top of the leaderboard for the best finish of her green collegiate career.
Before punching her team’s ticket to the NCAA Championship, Smith had a historic outing at the ACC Championship in April, where she went 4-1 in match play and tied for 15th.
Joining a conversation that name-drops Duke alums and LPGA pros Leona Maguire and Brittany Lang, Smith’s score of 68 tied for the second-lowest opening round of the ACC Championship by a Blue Devil freshman in school history.
Untapped potential and a path to the pros aside, Smith’s trademark humility speaks louder than the shiny accolades and scorecards.
“It’s about just taking one shot at a time and one hole at a time and embracing each moment of being a collegiate golfer.”
Emilee Smarr is the high school sports reporter for The Palm Beach Post. She can be reached via email at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on the Palm Beach Post: Benjamin alum and Duke freshman Andie Smith fourth at NCAA regional