[Photo: Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia]
Cameron Smith has launched his bid for a last dance at Royal Queensland with a solid start to the Australian PGA Championship on Thursday.
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Smith shot a two-under-par 69 and was two shots off the clubhouse lead at the BMW Australian PGA, but five behind the actual lead when first-round play was suspended at 4.15pm Brisbane time due to storms.
Unheralded Spanish golfer Sebastian Garcia was seven-under through 15 holes while Australia’s Daniel Gale won a BMW car with his hole in one at the par-3 11th that contributed to a five-under score through 12 holes.
The first round will resume at 6am on Friday.
New Zealand’s Ryan Fox, a two-time PGA Tour winner this year, and Anthony Quayle, the Northern Territorian who has legendary caddie Steve Williams on the bag this week, posted the clubhouse lead at four-under in the morning wave alongside China’s Wenyi Ding and Finland’s Tapio Pulkkanen (all 67).
Smith was among several homegrown big names in the mix including fellow Australian PGA winners Min Woo Lee and Adam Scott (both three-under 68).
The 2025 Australian PGA will be the last edition at Royal Queensland before the course undergoes renovations to host the golf tournament of the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane.
On Thursday, Smith made a heartfelt pledge to put himself in contention come Sunday at Royal Queensland.
“Yeah, I mean I want to win every tournament I play in, but this one in particular has been really good to me and being in Brisbane,” Smith said. “I don’t know how much longer this tournament’s going to be here, it’s a bit up in the air at the moment, so it’d be nice to maybe go out on the win if it’s the last one here.”
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Smith set his alarm for 2:45am to warm up for a 6am tee-time in round one and posted four birdies against two bogeys.
“Getting up at 2:45 [is rough], I can tell you that much,” Smith said. “Today was good; I made a lot of good putts from six to eight feet and I didn’t really make anything outside of that all day, so that was good to see that one go in.”
Scott, the 2013 Masters champion at Augusta, is chasing a third Kirkwood Cup but first at Royal Queensland where he is a member and was a junior champion.
“Yeah, I played pretty solid, so I’m happy with that,” Scott said of his five birdies and two bogeys, the latter of which came at his last hole, the par-5 ninth. “It’s a little wet out there and made it challenging in some spots. It’s tricky around the greens. If you’re just a little bit outside the circle, it can get hard to make putts and you can’t really force it because then you can make mistakes. So I think the course has held up fairly well given that it’s been so wet and felt fairly solid.”
Lee, who was an endless highlight reel at the 2023 Australian PGA when he chipped in on the ninth during the final round en route to winning, played with Smith and DP World Tour breakout star Marco Penge on Thursday. A 68 had Lee four off the pace but only one behind the clubhouse lead.
“Yeah, it was awesome [to play with Penge and Smith],” Lee said. “I mean, obviously Cam is a good friend and Marco I’ve known from a very young age, so it’s very cool to play with friends. I know Marco’s a little sick and has a sore neck, but no, it’s good to play with someone that you know really well.”
