- Australian golfer struggled in first round at British Open
- Cameron Smith shot nine over on a day he called ‘brutal’
- Queenslander and LIV star Smith, 30, won the Open in 2022
Australian golfer Cameron Smith is licking his wounds after the ‘most intense’ day of his career at a major championship: the British Open. For the first time, he scored an 80 in one of golf’s four biggest tournaments.
In the 33 majors played over the past nine years, the 30-year-old Queenslander had never suffered such humiliation as he did in the opening round at Royal Troon on Thursday, when he posted a nine-over-par round.
A bogey on the first hole and a triple-bogey seven on the second hole saw Smith improve on his previous worst round in a major: another round of 79 (nine over par) at the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.
But this one could perhaps have been worse, with his nine bogeys and a triple in the company of the inspired Shane Lowry, the 2019 champion who quickly moved into second place with a faultless 66 – a full 14 strokes better than the Australian’s disastrous effort.
His round rules out any realistic chance of Smith, who has done reasonably well on the LIV tour, now regaining the Claret Jug he won at St Andrews two years ago.
“Just a bad day, honestly. I mean, if you would have told me earlier that I was going to shoot that, I wouldn’t have said that was possible,” Smith said.
‘But yeah, just a bit of a bad start and I couldn’t really make putts when I needed them to get back into it. I had a couple of bad breaks as well.’
In reality, it could have been even worse as Smith made two more birdies on the last three holes, which gave him some small consolation.
Australian golfer Cameron Smith licks his wounds after most ‘brutal’ day at the British Open
The Queenslander shot nine over par at Royal Troon, at times resembling a weekend hack
Playing with two great champions, Lowry and Matt Fitzpatrick, certainly fueled his championship mentality.
“It was really tough if you ask me. If you ask Shane, it would probably be a different story!” Smith said of their respective rounds.
‘No, it’s tough, mate. Lots of crosswind. Tough to keep your ball in the fairway, and when you’re in the rough, you’re kind of gambling on landing short with the bounces you get.
“It was brutal, it was a really good test of golf, and you had to be at your A-plus game to shoot under par, and I saw it. Shane played well.”
After being knocked out of bounds on the second hole, Smith shrugged: “There was a lot of golf left after that point. Anything can happen. I’ve done it before. I think it was on the second hole, where I hit a triple and won the golf tournament.
“There are a few things that go through your head to kick you in the ass and make you think. But yeah, it was just a brutal day, honestly.”
What was doubly frustrating was that he thought he had been “quietly confident” after finishing sixth at Valderrama in Spain last week, one of a number of top 10 finishes in the LIV he has achieved in recent times.
“I’m just going to go out there and try to hit a really low one to get through the weekend. It’s a challenge because the course doesn’t really give you many easy shots,” Smith shrugged.
“There’s nothing else I can do to change it. It was just a bad day.”