Tired and understandably hungover, Cameron Smith says his dream of finally winning an Australian Open after several heartbreakingly close calls will give the energy he needs after an incredible, but exhausting, Australian PGA Championship victory.
Smith is seeking to become the first Australian to win the Open Championship and Australian Open in the same year, having won the 150th edition at St Andrews in July. Winning both in the same year is a feat that the four previous Australian winners of the Open Championship – Peter Thomson, Kel Nagle, Greg Norman and Ian Baker-Finch – were never able to pull off.
Smith is the man to beat at the Australian Open at Victoria GC and Kingston Heath this week, with an impressive men’s draw boasting Adam Scott, Marc Leishman, defending champion Matt Jones, Lucas Herbert, Min Woo Lee, Ryan Fox and Cam Davis. The men’s and women’s Opens will play concurrently, the first national open to do so.
World No.3 Smith lived up to his billing last week at the Australian PGA Championship, winning in his childhood backyard of Brisbane despite being pulled in a million different directions all week. He was showing off the claret jug from his historic Open victory in July, signing autographs, posing for selfies, and doing countless interviews.
Smith held onto a 54-hole lead and won the Australian PGA at Royal Queensland by three shots and celebrated well into the night.
“Yeah I got into Melbourne Monday; it was a bit of a waste of a day yesterday to be honest but it was good,” Smith said with a laugh at the extremity of his hangover Monday morning.
But its’s back to business for Smith as the Australian Open returns to the Melbourne Sandbelt for the first time in 20 years.
Smith admits one of the biggest holes in his resume is an Australian Open victory, having lost in a playoff to three-time major champion Jordan Spieth at Royal Sydney in 2016. Smith also claimed a fourth at The Australian in 2017 and a tie for 10th at The Lakes in 2018.
The desire to add the Australian Open’s Stonehaven Cup to a trophy cabinet that includes the claret jug, the PGA Tour’s Players Championship and three Australian PGA Joe Kirkwood Cups would get his energy levels up enough to contend this week.
“Yeah, I think that’ll help,” Smith said. “I think the crowds are gonna be awesome down here. I think I really drew a lot of those [fans] last week being in Brissie (Brisbane). There was a lot of a lot of home support and hopefully there’s a few guys down here as well.”
There’s also a drive to end his phenomenal year in style with a sixth victory. Smith began 2022 by winning the very first PGA Tour event of the year, the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii, before the Players Championship in March, the Open at St Andrews, a LIV Golf event in Chicago once he’d left the PGA Tour, and last week’s Australian PGA.
“This is my last one [tournament] of the year,” he said. “It’d be a really nice way to finish off a really good year. The plan was to come down here and win both of them and I’ve ticked one box. Hopefully I can do one more this week.
“It’s been really good; I haven’t really had time to reflect because I have been pretty busy. I think over the next month or so I will. I’ve always been a process kind of person. I just love ticking boxes on a day to day basis and how everything’s kind of turned out this year has been pretty incredible.”
