[Photo: Getty images]
Cameron Smith has urged Australian Open organisers to set up Royal Melbourne in vintage firm and fast December conditions so that Rory McIlroy receives the true Sandbelt experience, arguing that the 121-year-old tournament “can be one of best in the world.”
There are still 130 days until the Australian Open tees off on December 4 with reigning Masters champion and the sixth member of the career grand slam club, McIlroy, as the headline act. Smith, however, a three-time Australian PGA champion who hasn’t lifted the Stonehaven Cup, is already dreaming about a bouncing Composite course at the world-renowned Royal Melbourne.
The former world No.2 was highly critical of the course setup for last year’s Australian Open at Kingston Heath, deeming it “soft and slow” while questioning how significant rain, which had lashed Melbourne in the days leading up to the 2024 edition, could have altered the speed of the fairways and greens having seen it drain during amateur and professional tournaments he’d played on the Melbourne Sandbelt.
Smith told Australian Golf Digest at LIV Golf UK that he was already thinking about the 2025 national championship and that he hoped it was set up firm and fast.
“Yeah, I mean, that’s how everyone wants it [to play],” Smith told AGD at JCB Golf and Country Club. “Rory is coming down this year and I’m sure he wants it like that [too]. That’s what we need to do to get these great players [like 2013 Australian Open winner McIlroy] down and make the Australian Open what it can be. I believe it can be one of the best tournaments in the world. We’ve got world class golf courses. A lot of stuff hasn’t made sense and I’m all for getting the Aussie Open back to what it can be.”
Smith, who used his imagination and creativity to win his first career major at the Old Course at St Andrews in 2022, and who won the 2013 Australian Amateur at Commonwealth Golf Club, is an avid fan of golf played on firm, fast turf where shots frequently have to be struck low and running and with curve to get close to pins.
His competitive history on the Melbourne Sandbelt includes everything from that Australian Amateur victory to competing in pro tournaments such as the World Cup of Golf (2018) alongside Marc Leishman at Metropolitan, as well as Australian Opens and other tournaments. Smith says true Sandbelt conditions are when golfers are allowing up to 20 metres of run out with a pitching wedge while trying to take spin off almost every approach shot in order to use the contours. He said there wasn’t a hole at Royal Melbourne’s Composite course, which he played during the 2019 Presidents Cup, that he wasn’t champing at the bit to play this December.
“All of them; there aren’t too many bad ones out there, to be honest,” Smith said. “Sandbelt golf has always been firm and fast, and has always been about leaving yourself in the correct side of the fairway to have a shot at the green and using all the slopes and being creative. I just think that all of that has been taken out of Australian golf recently, not just that tournament, but a lot of places are set up like American courses [lush, green with soft turf] and they shouldn’t be. They’re not designed like that.”
A week before Smith spoke to AGD, Nick Dastey, the PGA of Australia’s General Manager of Tournaments and Global Tour Relationships, said a firm, fast Royal Melbourne was “the way we want it to play” this summer.
“Yeah, it’s definitely part of … not only our job as the as one of the co-sanctioning tours [alongside] the DP World Tour as a co-sanctioning tour and Trevor Herden in his role as a tournament director on behalf of Golf Australia, there’s no doubt that’s the way we want it to play,” Dastey told Australian reporters at Royal Portrush during the Open Championship.
“That’s the way we will intend it to play, and we’ll be doing everything we can to make sure that’s the case. Sometimes the weather gods don’t allow it, but it’s certainly the intention that it’ll be a traditional Royal Melbourne. If you think back to the Presidents Cup in 2019, that was pinnacle Royal Melbourne. I think we would love to think that the Australian Open this year has that type of condition.”
