Jordan Smith's hilarious reaction to grabbing final PGA Tour card
Jordan Smith claimed the last of 10 PGA Tour cards on offer at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai 12 months after missing out in cruel circumstances.
Rory McIlroy and Matthew Fitzpatrick made the headlines at the DP World Tour Championship with their respective victories - but perhaps the story of the week belonged to Jordan Smith.
The 33-year-old English golfer was the victim of a cruel gap in the system 12 months ago after he narrowly missed out on earning his first PGA Tour card.
Smith finished 11th in the rankings behind last man in Tom McKibbin 12 months ago. At the time, McKibbin was being strongly linked with a switch to the PIF-backed LIV Golf.
By the time McKibbin confirmed his reported $5m deal with the breakaway tour, it was too late for Smith to be bumped up and given the PGA Tour card.
Many felt this was extremely unfair to Smith.
For his part, Smith harboured absolutely no hard feelings towards McIlroy's mentee, but he explained that it was hard to take.
"It's just one of those things you have to take on the chin and use it as fuel to get one of those cards the next time," Smith previously told MailSport.
"At the time he [McKibbin] might have not known that he was definitely going to be on LIV. But for me it was a hard blow to miss out. Getting on the PGA Tour is a big goal of mine."
For large parts of last week, it looked as though Smith was going to come up short yet again. The projected rankings saw him switch with 11th and 10th place on several occasions.
But a final round of 69 saw Smith finish in a share of 20th place in Dubai, which was enough to grab the final card.
After a few hugs with friends, family and members of his team, Smith shared his reaction on his own personal Instagram page:
Fantastic stuff.
Congratulations to Jordan Smith.
Which other players earned PGA Tour cards?
Breakout star Marco Penge topped the standings of the players not otherwise exempt on the PGA Tour.
Penge won three times on the DP World Tour this season and was very close to getting a call from Luke Donald ahead of the 2025 Ryder Cup.
He was already assured of a card before he teed off in Dubai.
Now he will try and crack the United States.
"I will miss it here," he told Sky Sports on Sunday. "I'll miss the players, the staff, just the Tour in general.
"This is where I've started and a place I'm not going to forget. Hopefully I'll be playing as much as I can back on the DP World Tour when that season is finished.
"It won't be the last time you see me."
Penge has also secured tee times for the 2026 Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass and the first two signature events of the schedule.
Laurie Canter locked up the second PGA Tour card.
The Englishman played in plenty of LIV Golf events between 2022-2023 before returning to the DP World Tour last season.
This year, Canter played in the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass via the top 50 on the Official World Golf Ranking.
It was the first time a LIV-affiliated player had teed it up on the PGA Tour since the unprecedented disruption in the men's game began.
Kristoffer Reitan, Adrien Saddier, Alex Noren, John Parry, Haotong Li, Keita Nakajima and Denmark's Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen also locked up their cards.
Ben Smith joined the GolfMagic team in September 2021, initially as a content executive.
These days, he assumes the position of content manager.
