Cameron Smith has put the disappointment of missing the cut at last week’s Australian PGA Championship behind him and set his sights on winning the Australian Open for the first time.
Tournament favourite Smith beat just seven players in the 156-man field at Royal Queensland, shooting 73-78 to miss the cut by nine strokes.
He spent the past few days working with coach Grant Field on tweaking his swing for the ISPS Handa Australian Open being staged this week in Sydney at The Australian and The Lakes.
“It was a very frustrating week. Obviously the game didn’t feel good,” Smith said. “It was pretty upsetting to play like that at home, not only in Australia but in my hometown (Brisbane). I had lots of friends and family there that were hoping for another good week, but it wasn’t to be.
“So lots of hard work over the weekend with my coach, Grant. We hit a lot of balls, worked on the right stuff and the game’s feeling pretty good this week.”
Smith explained the bad habit in his swing comes when the arms get disconnected from his body, the club gets behind him and the backswing becomes a overly long.
“So my arms travel a little bit too far and just wasn’t in sync. And to be honest, it was a long way out last week. The work last weekend and the beginning of this week has just been trying to get the arms and the body to kind of match.
“I wouldn’t say my confidence is at 100 per cent, but there’s no reason I can’t go out there and be competitive. It only takes a few good shots and a few good feels and all of a sudden you’re looking at yourself at the top of the leaderboard.”
Smith’s nightmare week in Brisbane followed another impressive year when he won twice in the LIV Golf League and finished second behind Talor Gooch’s in the season-long points race.
“It’s a silly game sometimes. A couple of weeks ago I was competing to win the Hong Kong Open and thought I was playing pretty decent golf. And a couple of weeks later it was at the other end of the spectrum.
“It’s pretty weird how it can change that quickly… Just as you think you’ve got it, you don’t. And then sometimes when you think you don’t have it, you’re finishing in the top five or top 10. So it’s a crazy game.”
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