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It’s a record that makes for pretty ugly reading. In all seven Official World Golf Ranking-eligible tournaments Cameron Smith has contested in 2025, he’s missed the cut. This week’s Crown Australian Open at venerable Royal Melbourne Golf Club offers the 2022 Open champion one final chance to right an otherwise lost year.
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Smith recorded five top-10 finishes across 13 starts in LIV Golf’s individual events during 2025, with a best result of T-5 in Mexico City in late April, but had the weekend off every time he ventured elsewhere – including at all four majors. He also played only two rounds at the Alfred Dunhill Links, PIF Saudi International (where he shared second place a year earlier) and last week’s BMW Australian PGA Championship.
By any measure, it’s been a lacklustre year. Speaking to the media this morning, the 32-year-old came across as a golfer searching but one who’s perhaps just a good break or two away from recapturing his formidable spark.
“On some reflection, I guess over the weekend, it was a bad tournament,” Smith said. “I didn’t play my best golf, but it does honestly feel like it’s right there. It’s super-frustrating. I can’t describe the feeling. It feels defeating, to be honest. It feels like I’m right on the cusp of where I should be and [I’m] not really getting anything out of it.
“I just need to keep doing what I’m doing, keep working hard and keep at it. It’s a frustrating game. I understand that people through their career go through ups and downs, but a person’s career doesn’t get defined on a season or an event.”
Of his mediocre performances, Smith has remained typically phlegmatic.
“Golf doesn’t owe me anything,” he said. “I have to go out there and work and I think throughout the season it’s been a case of hitting one or two bad shots here and there and it’s like a, Oh, here we go again-type of thing. Whereas I think maybe in years past it’s been almost a challenge for me.
“Like I said, it feels so good on the range and so good in practice rounds and that it’s just super-frustrating. When you’re out there trying to compete, you kind of have a look at the leaderboard and you’re trying too much rather than just trying to play your own game. There’s a few things that I can definitely work on, but I don’t think it’s the game.”
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Also motivating the Queenslander is this week’s opportunity to join two elite clubs. Only three golfers (Bruce Devlin, Bob Shearer and Greg Chalmers) have won each of the Australian Amateur, Open and PGA championships. Smith needs just our Open to make that club a quartet (Jed Morgan has the same opportunity).
This week Smith can also join Seve Ballesteros as winners of championships at St Andrews and Royal Melbourne. The legendary Spaniard captured the 1981 Australian PGA at ‘RM’ and The Open at the Old Course three years later.
When asked by Australian Golf Digest about completing the double, Smith was jovial yet emphatic.
“I think I’d take an Aussie Open anywhere – I’d take an Aussie Open at Wantima, to be honest,” Smith said of his home club in Brisbane. “That’d be nice.
“But it’s a tournament that I desperately want to win and then you get the course vibe with it as well… It’d be a pretty special thing to win an Aussie Open around Royal Melbourne, for sure.”
Motivation won’t be difficult for Smith to find this week. Whether it’s incentive to add late upside to a lean year or to join rare company in the annals of the game, he’s not here seeking to sneak out of 2025 quietly.
