Hands up if you’ve seen much of Cameron Smith this year. Not many in Australia have.
As his Saudi-backed LIV Golf series desperately tries to get television traction (it is being streamed in Australia on 7plus), one of the country’s best athletes will step out of a rather large shadow and into the Georgian sunshine of the US Masters next week.
The mullet is still there, and those who can pull off mullets barely seem to have a care in the world.
But it doesn’t mean the weight of being the British Open champion and the increased public profile that comes with it, as well as being Greg Norman’s highest-ranked player in an upstart series that has torn golf asunder, hasn’t been felt.
“Last year was a really big year and that break [back in Australia over summer] could not have come at a better time,” Smith says. “I’m not a very stressed or anxious person and I feel like those levels were at an all-time high in November and December. I think I needed to do that for myself.
“I had such a good time in Australia with family and friends it was almost hard to come back to reality. The last couple of months have been really good, and I’ve been focusing on the body a lot.”
Cameron Smith on the 12th tee during last year’s the Masters.Credit:Getty
Whether Smith wins or stands on one of those podiums in the latest LIV Golf event in Orlando this weekend is irrelevant to all but his bank balance, which doesn’t need propping up.
This month, the past few months, have all been built around a tilt at the Masters, where the 18 LIV players will take on the PGA Tour stars for the first time since Smith’s historic win at St Andrews in July.
Play well as a group, and all the talk of LIV being a travelling sideshow for guaranteed cheques and a halfway house to retirement will subside. But if they don’t? Well, you know what the narrative will be.
“It will be nice to see some familiar faces, and it will just be good to compete against the best guys in the world,” Smith says. “That’s what we play for. I think these majors have really stepped up and done what they needed to do getting all the big guys back to put on a show.
“It will be a very, very good first major, and I think it’s going to be a good major season.”
Smith says he expects little animosity between the PGA Tour and LIV stars, and he will be happy to play with anyone, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy included (McIlroy rang Smith last year to dissuade him from joining Norman’s breakaway league).
“There’s definitely no issues,” Smith says.
And he’s ultra-respectful of the Augusta National traditions, claiming plans to wear the logo of his LIV franchise, Ripper Golf Club, will be decided in the days before the first round.
“I don’t want to step on any toes,” the world No.5 says. “That’s not what I want to do, and it’s the last place I want to do it. I want to be there for as long as I can.”
Interestingly, Smith is the only LIV golfer scheduled for a pre-tournament media appearance at the Masters.
Smith is no stranger to his name being on the Masters leaderboard, and he has three top-five finishes in the past five years. Last year hurt. He trailed eventual winner Scottie Scheffler by three shots in the last group of the final round and saw his hopes disappear at the bottom of Rae’s Creek with a nightmarish seven on the 12th.
“I think it hurt a little bit last year going away from the tournament,” Smith says. “I’ve said it before, I genuinely feel I play my best golf there. I just haven’t had a week when everything has come together.
“You can get a bit of a bad break, or a momentum shift I haven’t quite been able to get on top of. It’s a hard track. You make one mistake around there, it could mean a couple of shots.
“But I feel it’s the place where I have my best golf, and I’m pretty confident going back there.”
Smith will head an Australian cast featuring former winner Adam Scott, 10 years on from claiming Australia’s only green jacket, Jason Day, Min Woo Lee and amateur Harrison Crowe.
Smith’s LIV Golf teammate Marc Leishman won’t be at Augusta, ending a streak of 30 consecutive majors. He has tumbled out of the world’s top 50 due to a world rankings impasse in which LIV’s 54-hole, no cut events are not officially recognised.
“[Cam’s] playing well,” Leishman said. “He’s gearing up for [the Masters] and preparing for that. He’s working on those shots in the months leading up to [Augusta] because there are some shots you have to play there that you really don’t play at any other golf course.
“I know he’s got that fire and he wants to come away with the green jacket. We all want to see him do it.”
Smith says: “I feel like the fire in the belly is definitely there given some other circumstances there as well.”
Australians may not have seen much of Smith this year, but all eyes will be on him at Augusta.
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