PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Austin Smotherman's one previous PGA Tour appearance at the tournament now known as the Cognizant Classic was in 2022 and it was unmemorable: He shot 70 in the first round, 76 in the second and missed the cut by four shots.
Given that, he didn't see a round like Thursday's coming.
Smotherman tied the best round of his career, shooting a 9-under 62 to take the early lead in the opening round of the Cognizant.
Smotherman became the seventh player to shoot 62 or better at PGA National in this event. The others: Jake Knapp (59 in Round 1, 2025), Matt Jones (61 in Round 1, 2021), Brian Harman (61 in Round 2, 2012), Chris Kirk (62 in Round 2, 2023), Brandon Hagy (62 in Round 2, 2021) and Tiger Woods (62 in the final round, 2012).
“It was a pretty easy round,” Smotherman said, “on a golf course that shouldn’t be this easy.”
And that is a talking point at PGA National.
The course is overseeded, which means rye has been added to the Bermuda grass. The advantages are many, including the grass looks greener, which means PGA National looks prettier on television. Not just that, but the course plays softer as well.
Put in simplest terms, an overseeded PGA National isn’t as daunting to get around as the PGA National of a few years ago. Mark Wilson won in the tournament’s first year on this course with a score of 5 under, and 11 of the first 14 winners at PGA National finished less than 10-under par. The winning scores in the last five years: 12 under, 10 under, 14 under, 17 under and 19 under.
“This is a really good golf course,” said Billy Horschel, who shot a 2-under 69 on Thursday. “It’s a very fair golf course. When it blows hard, it’s a challenge, and when it’s sort of benign like it is today, it’s gettable. A few years ago the rough was longer and then they started cutting it down and then they overseeded the golf course.
“Listen, I think the Tour gets a bad rap, and it’s not anything against the owners of PGA National. I understand where they would want to overseed. People want it to look pretty on TV, and if it looks pretty on TV, maybe people will want to come play it.”
Horschel created a bit of a buzz on Wednesday when he weighed in on X to discuss the overseeding issue. On Thursday, he didn’t rant and rave — but made clear that he preferred the PGA National that had some more teeth than this version.
“I understand we are using a golf course that we don’t own a lot of times, and sometimes we’re at the discretion of what the owner wants to do,” Horschel said. “Obviously we give our opinion of what we think is best for the golf course and how they want to set it up and challenge it, but also, the owners have a say in it. This isn’t just PGA National; it goes to a lot of courses that we play throughout the years.”
Smotherman — fueled by six consecutive birdies on holes 7 through 12 — tapped in for a birdie on the par-5 finishing hole for the second 62 in his PGA Tour career. He also shot 62 in the first round of the Bermuda Championship in October 2022.
He held a first-round lead once before this week, the 2023 Mexico Open, and hasn’t won any of his first 81 starts on tour. He's also playing without a line on the ball this week, seeing what that does for his putting.
So far, so good.
“Trying to just be a little bit more freeing with the stroke, be an artist on the greens, see the line, kind of let it just be external, look at the hole, see where I want it to go in and just trust that I’m pretty good at just aiming in the general vicinity that needs to happen,” Smotherman said. “Then from there, just letting good speed take over, and hopefully the hole gets in the way.”
Nico Echavarria shot 63 in the morning half of the draw at PGA National. No one else from the morning wave shot better than 67, with Taylor Moore and Jackson Suber coming in with those scores.
Wind was picking up in the afternoon at PGA National, meaning Smotherman's lead seemed likely to hold up.
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Billy Horschel hits from the 17th tee at Spyglass Hill Golf Course during the second round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica (AP) — Cuban soldiers confronted a speedboat carrying 10 people as the vessel approached the island and opened fire on the troops, who fired back, killing four and wounding six, according to the Cuban government.
The Cuban Ministry of the Interior said the people aboard the boat Wednesday were Cubans living in the U.S. and accused them of trying to infiltrate the country to engage in terrorism. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it was not a U.S. government operation.
Here’s what to know about the confrontation that has resulted in investigations in both Cuba and the United States and could add to tensions between the two countries.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Thursday that Cuba "does not attack or threaten.”
“We have stated this repeatedly, and we reiterate it today: Cuba will defend itself with determination and firmness against any terrorist or mercenary aggression that seeks to undermine its sovereignty and national stability,” he wrote on X.
Cuban authorities launched an investigation, the foreign minister said.
Rubio said the American government was gathering its own information, including whether the people were U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida said it was pursuing answers “through every legal and diplomatic channel available.”
The wounded people were detained, Cuban officials said, and the government identified seven of the 10 passengers.
It said that two of them, Amijail Sánchez González and Leordan Enrique Cruz Gómez, are wanted by Cuban authorities “based on their involvement in the promotion, planning, organization, financing, support or commission" of terrorism.
It identified the others as Conrado Galindo Sariol, José Manuel Rodríguez Castelló, Cristian Ernesto Acosta Guevara and Roberto Azcorra Consuegra.
Cuba’s government said one of the four killed was Michel Ortega Casanova. His brother Misael Ortega Casanova told The Associated Press that his sibling had developed an “obsessive and diabolical” quest for Cuba’s freedom given the suffering they endured on the island before moving to the U.S. He said his brother was an American citizen who lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years.
Meanwhile, Galindo Sariol, another passenger, was identified as a former political prisoner in a 2025 interview with Martí Noticias, a U.S.-based news site that has long called for a change of government in Cuba.
The Cuban government said it was a Florida-registered speedboat and that officials who searched it found assault rifles, handguns, homemade explosives, bulletproof vests, telescopic sights and camouflage uniforms.
The AP was unable to verify details because boat registrations are not public in Florida.
The island’s foreign minister wrote Thursday on X that Cuba has faced “numerous terrorist and aggressive infiltrations” from the U.S. since 1959, "with a high cost in lives, injuries and material damage.”
The most famous attempt involving Cuban exiles was the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961.
The CIA had trained a group of exiles under the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower that was led by José Miró Cardona, a former member of Fidel Castro ’s government and head of the Cuban Revolutionary Council in the U.S.
The failed invasion that occurred under former President John F. Kennedy led to the surrender of some 1,200 exiles, while more than 100 others were killed.
Another high-profile encounter occurred on Feb. 24, 1996, when Cuba’s air force shot down two unarmed civilian airplanes operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based organization. Four men were killed following the attack that the International Civil Aviation Organization said occurred over international waters.
According to the radio communications between the MiG-29 and a military control tower published by the Organization of American States, the MiG-29 celebrated upon striking the second plane: "Homeland or death, you bastards!” in a reference to the famed Cuban revolutionary cry.
In 2022, several incidents were reported in Cuban waters involving an exchange of gunfire and arrests but no apparent casualties.
It’s not unusual for skirmishes to erupt between Cuba’s Coast Guard and U.S.-flagged speedboats in Cuban waters, although deaths are rare. In past years, some of those U.S.-flagged boats were laden with unidentified cargo headed toward the island, or they were going to pick up Cubans to smuggle them into the U.S.
The shooting threatens to increase tensions between the two countries after President Donald Trump 's administration has already having taken an increasingly aggressive stance toward Cuba.
When the U.S. attacked Venezuela and arrested its leader on Jan. 3, oil shipments to Cuba that were largely keeping the island afloat were halted.
Then Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 29 that would impose a tariff on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba, which recently implemented austere fuel-saving measures.
William LeoGrande, an American University expert on Cuba, said there's a risk that the Trump administration “uses this incident as some kind of an excuse to come up with even more sanctions.”
"But if the Cuban government lays out all the guns that they captured and has some of these people confessing to what they were up to, that might put the issue to rest,” he told journalists Thursday in an online briefing.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department slightly eased restrictions on the sale of Venezuelan oil to Cuba, but the island’s energy and economic crisis is expected to persist.
LeoGrande said Cuba's private sector would not import enough oil “to really make a significant dent in the humanitarian crisis."
Retiree Jorge Reyes pushes his motorcycle to refuel as it's his turn in line at a gasoline station in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
An elderly woman begs for alms from tourists in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A driver steers his bicycle taxi decorated with U.S. and Cuban flags in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Soldiers walk through Old Havana to collect garbage in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A ferry crosses Havana Bay past the Nico Lopez oil refinery where a Cuban tanker is anchored in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
FILE - Children are seen through the Cuban flag while they walk to the Havana's Malecon to toss flowers into the ocean in commemoration of the anniversary of the death of the Cuban revolutionary Commander Camilo Cienfuegos, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004 in Havana, Cuba. (AP Photo/Cristobal Herrera, File)
FILE - This is a general view of El Malecon in Havana, Cuba, seen Nov. 1971. (AP Photo/Beverley Reed, File)
FILE - A fisherman casts his line along the Malecon at sunrise in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa, File)
FILE - A Cuban woman hanging laundry on her balcony is seen reflected in a glass window decorated with a poster of Cuba's leader Fidel Castro in Old Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007. (AP Photo/Dado Galdieri, File)
