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GOLF: Riverside's Smith eliminated from 'Big Break Ireland'

As much as Nicole Smith loved her experience as a cast member/competitor on Golf Channel’s “Big Break Ireland,” she hated watching Tuesday’s episode.

The show was filmed in May, but the former Riverside King star still sounded steamed talking about her elimination, aired this week, on Golf Channel’s long-running reality show that offers players an opportunity to win prizes that include exemptions onto golf’s premier tours.

“Upsetting,” said Smith, who spent the past two seasons playing on the LPGA Futures Tour. “To relive it and re-see it and confirm those upset feelings that I had that day … it was sad.”

Smith was the seventh player excused of 12 this season, a victim of her only truly poor shot during filming.

On the final hole of her elimination challenge against Team Straffan teammate Nina Rodriguez — whose putter, until then, had failed her — Smith’s approach shot flew over the green. She then watched a long putt that could have extended her stay clang in and out of the cup. Rodriguez, meanwhile, parred the hole to excuse Smith from competition.

“Do I think she got lucky?” a frustrated Smith said on the show. “Yeah, I think she got really lucky.”

Smith didn’t win $50,000 in cash and $30,000 in other prizes, plus the exemption into the LPGA’s Kia Classic and the Ladies Irish Open, but she clearly won the respect of the players who were on the show with her.

During the elimination challenge, a clip was played in which one of the contestants described who he was rooting for: “Nina because Nicole’s going to play on the LPGA Tour.”

“That was the flattering part of it all,” Smith, 24, said by phone. “No one really questioned my game or my desire to fight or get where I want to be and where I’m eventually going to end up.”

Eventually could be next season. Smith gained entry into the final round of LPGA Qualifying as an alternate. It begins Nov. 30 in Daytona Beach, Fla., and she’s thrown herself into preparing for what she hopes is her biggest break of all.