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Some of Australian golf’s biggest names in Adam Scott and Min Woo Lee backed Cameron Smith to bounce back from a horror run of form after the former major winner missed the cut at his home event, the Australian PGA at Royal Queensland.
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On Friday, Smith made a double-bogey to shoot 75 (four-over) and drop to two over, well outside the cut line at two-under, which was seven back of the 36-hole lead.
It meant former world No.2 Smith, a member at Royal Queensland, missed the weekend in all seven events so far this year that offered Official World Golf Ranking points: including the four majors, two DP World Tour and one Asian Tour event. He has only the Australian Open left on his 2025 schedule.
It was a tough result for three-time Australian PGA winner Smith, who loves the Royal Queensland course having claimed the 2022 edition there in front of family and friends after a breakout year in which he claimed The Open at St Andrews and the Players Championship.
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Scott is no stranger to a slump having endured a brutal year in 2009 before launching himself back to the upper echelon of golf, where he won the Masters at Augusta National only four years later. Both former world No.1 Scott and PGA Tour winner this year, Min Woo Lee, urged golf fans to write Smith off at their own risk.
Asked whether Smith could turn it around as soon as next week’s Australian Open, a tournament the Queenslander has come close to winning without lifting the Stonehaven, Scott said no doubt.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Scott, a two-time Australian PGA winner, said. “He’s got an incredible, incredible short game to lean into and actually that kind of gets a little neutralised here [at Royal Queensland] because it’s pretty grainy and even as great as he is [with wedges], it’s kind of not helping him as much as it would if he was having an off day with the ball-striking.
“When you’re as good as he is, of course he can, and it’s one swing, one chip, one putt here or there, and the momentum changes and the confidence can grow quickly in a hole or two, you know? It’s just putting four good swings and two putts together in a row and sometimes it’s really hard to do that, but that’s how it turns around and I’ve no doubt he can.”
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Lee, the Australian PGA champion in 2023, suffered a rough patch himself this year from the eve of the Masters onwards. After earning a breakthrough PGA Tour win at the Houston Open in March – where his maiden victory included staring down world No.1 Scottie Scheffler – the Perth product struggled at Augusta National and then registered just one top 20 result from then until September.
But recently the 27-year-old began working with coach Ritchie Smith on his hip movement through impact, and it improved his ball-striking enough to finish T-11 at the DP World Tour’s flagship BMW PGA at Wentworth. He then came close to victory at the French Open, where he was T-5, and posted a T-10 at the PGA Tour’s co-sanctioned Baycurrent Classic in Japan.
Lee has turned it around and was nine-under-par at the Australian PGA through two rounds and six holes before third round play was suspended due to inclement weather. Lee was three shots back of the lead. He said Smith would soon be in form again.
“Yeah, I mean that’s golf,” Lee said. “It can be tough, and I think [Smith] is one of the best players out here and there is pressure. I feel like I’m one of the home favourites, but you still got to play really good golf. He didn’t have his best stuff, but next week he’s going to come out good. I think it’s just a bit of a fire in his belly over this weekend. I’m sure he’s going to head down [to Melbourne] and grind and then show something next week.”
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Rubbing salt in the wound was the fact 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.
The affable 32-year-old Smith front up to media and was visibly emotional at his performance this week and this year. “Yep, it was shit,” Smith said when asked if it was a tough day at the office. “If you had have told me that was going to happen this morning, when I was warming up, I’d have told you otherwise. I don’t know, I just don’t know. I am so confused. I was feeling good, really confident and just couldn’t get anything going. It was weird.”
Smith welcomed his first child before the Masters in April where he missed the cut, before exiting the PGA and the US Open, the latter coming after he lost a family member and had to make a quick dash from the US to Brisbane, as well as the Open Championship at Portrush. He then missed the cut at the Dunhill Links event in Scotland on the DP World Tour as well as last week’s Saudi International on the Asian Tour.
He said it was tough not to zoom out and overthink the year as a whole.
“It can definitely get in your head, I think it is in my head; It’s just frustrating,” Smith said. “It’s been my story of the year, feel I’ve worked hard all year and got nothing out of it. I do know what the answer is, it’s just to keep working hard and try to be patient.”
Smith will dust himself off and head to Melbourne on Monday where he’ll launch a bid for a maiden Australian Open victory given the Stonehaven Cup has eluded him in the past, including a playoff loss to Jordan Spieth in 2016.
With a star-studded Australian Open field at Royal Melbourne’s Composite course to be headlined by reigning Masters champion Rory McIlroy, Smith will be a part of the most exciting Australian Open in recent times as he chases the non-major trophy he wants the most. “I was already excited to be there really; it’s going to be a great event, starting to come into its own and I’m excited to get down there and give it a crack,” Smith said.