Professional golf is an incredibly fickle game.

It’s hardly news but no matter how talented, every young player must get off the floor and onto the first step of the ladder.

For someone as obviously talented as Elvis Smylie the first step was to earn a card to play an overseas tour and Europe is the best place for young Australians to hone their games.

It always has been, and it always will be because of the variety of courses, the travel and the endurance it takes to survive.

Two years ago, he made it past the first stage of the DP World Tour Qualifying School but missed at the second of three hurdles.

Last year he was exempt into the finals and missed the fourth day cut – which at least guaranteed him a Challenge Tour card – by a shot. Then only a month or so ago he missed the first stage by a shot.

For someone so obviously talented it was a failure but frustration and failure and no bad thing if you manage to get out from under them.

Elvis won a few weeks ago in the West Australian Open which was some help as the leading non-exempt player on the Australian tour earns a DP World Tour exemption (in 2026) and he, along with Jack Buchanan were battling for the spot.

On Sunday morning at Royal Queensland he was tied for the 36-hole PGA Championship lead with the 2022 Open champion Cam Smith and the assumption of most was the more experienced man would win.

I wasn’t so sure and thought Smylie a decent chance as long as he “could survive the first hour”, a favourite saying of Mat Goggin who experienced the ultimate trial by fire playing with Tom Watson at Turnberry on the final day of the fateful, for some, 2009 Open Championship.

Smith and Smylie both pitched close at the opening hole and Elvis made a 15-footer for a birdie at the next. Smith replied at the third but horseshoed a five-footer to save par at the short fourth after a poor iron left.

Smith birdied the fifth, Smylie the sixth and both made fours at the long seventh, Elvis after a brilliant long iron into the one of the three hardest holes on the course to make a four.

While Smylie was relentlessly hitting greens, the more experienced Queenslander was missing them. He pulled an iron into the par-3 eighth but saved a par.

However at the long ninth there was no escape after a pull-hooked a driver off the fairway into the hazard lining the left side of the hole. A six there was a blow, and the youngster was three ahead with nine to play and had barely missed a shot.

Tour school with nine to play and you’re "on the mark" is no fun and pressure unlike any other and effectively that’s where Smylie found himself on the 10th tee.

All things being equal nine pars would do it and after a perfect drive he pulled a middle-iron long and right. It wasn’t the most difficult up and down but nothing, at this point is easy but he flipped a wedge up to eight feet and made it.

He passed the 11th by without incident then, in trying to drive the short par-4 12th, he pushed a three-wood into the trees on the left. It wasn’t so much a hard shot as a tricky one and he flirted with the defending bank and failed. His third – a bumped three-wood – ran 18 feet past but the putt was perfect.

Long and left again is a cardinal error at the 13th, a hole defended by a tiny, upturned green, but the three-wood chip back up the bank and a four-footer down the hill ensured another par.

The narrow 14th – one of the few remnants of the original Royal Queensland course – is the hardest par-4 and both Elvis and Smith blew drives far into the left trees. Smith came out sideways but Elvis advanced further along, close enough to wedge to five feet and save a par.

By now it’d become apparent the left-hander had morphed from Ben Hogan on the front nine to Severiano Ballesteros on the back, something accentuated by a high blocked fairway wood into the par-5, 15th. He fumbled the running pitch up the bank from the trees then hit a perfect long, running pitch for his fourth shot to five feet and made the putt.

Smith had made a four but by now the kid was far enough ahead to feel the ground beneath his feet.

Two perfectly precise wedges into the 16th and 17th holes secured the pars he needed although Smith did make it interesting by pitching in for a two at the 17th after missing the green. Elvis missed from six feet and instead of being four ahead he was only a birdie to a bogey away from a playoff.

Elvis hit a bad drive on the finisher, a hole with a fairway as wide as a football field and one centre bunker to mess with your head and your choice of club off the tee.

A long, running iron from behind a tree on the right made it into the front bunker and with Smith needing a great shot and a birdie to make it interesting he instead let all the air out of the championship and dumped his eight-iron into the very same front bunker.

Ultimately the winner closed the championship out with the nine pars he needed but not after a near-automatic up and down from the sand.

It was more stressful and complicated than necessary but his last four years as a pro, the failures, the close losses, as well as the win in the west, had prepared him well for what was, to this stage of his fledgling career, his first big test.

I’ve long thought him our best young player and Goggin thinks him one of the few “who hits the ball well enough to play in the United States".

It’s a way off but with an older sister living in England he has a perfect European base and anyone with a bit of Hogan and a bit of Seve is going to be all right.