Cameron Smith will channel a similar energy to Greg Norman’s epic 1986 homecoming tour when fans walk in the fairways at Nudgee Golf Club while the major winner gets back to his roots at the Queensland PGA Championship starting on Thursday.
Smith won just more than $16 million in prizemoney on LIV Golf alone this year (excluding majors) but didn’t think twice about teeing up in a tournament whose total prize purse is $250,000. He’ll tee off at 6:45am, Brisbane time, in Thursday’s opening round alongside the 2024 winners of his scholarship – Wesley Hinton and Kayun Mudadana.
Bolstering the atmosphere will be the fact fans at Nudgee Golf Club in Brisbane will be able to walk in several of the fairways and witness the former world No.2 up close (although there are some ropes on site). Smith has not played a tournament in Nudgee since his junior days.
Smith, the 2022 British Open champion at St Andrews, playing a state-level event will no doubt resemble scenes from 1986 when Norman, ranked world No.1, teed up at the NSW, Queensland, South Australia and West Australian opens – as well as the Australian Open and PGA – in a blockbuster schedule. That was only months after Norman won the Open Championship at Turnberry in Scotland and after he held the 54-hole lead at the Masters, US Open and PGA Championship. Back Down Under that summer, Norman was bigger than The Beatles.
Norman at the 1986 Open at Turnberry before he returned for the Australian summer.
Asked why he was teeing it up at the Queensland PGA, Smith had a heartfelt answer.
“It’s just good to be home and if I wasn’t playing this week, I’d probably be sitting on my bum at home doing nothing,” Smith told reporters on Wednesday. “I just thought it was a great opportunity to help out the Aussie tour and then also keep the competitive reps going before the couple of big ones (the Australian PGA and Australian Open) at the end of the year.”
Part of Smith’s inspiration, too, is to be competitively sharp for the upcoming Australian PGA Championship at nearby Royal Queensland in late November and the Australian Open the next week. Last year, Smith was the defending Australian PGA champion but shot 78 on day two at Royal Queensland and missed the cut by a long way. He admitted competitive rust and a lack of reps contributed to that.
The 31-year-old, who hasn’t played competitive golf in five weeks but who arrived in Australia in early October, wants to rule out any chance of that repeating.
“I was definitely upset with how I played there last year. That’s the big reason I’m playing this event,” Smith said. “It was a real eye-opener to know what has to be done to prep for these events, and, especially the Aussie ones, they’ve always been so good to me. I’d like to think I’ve got a pretty good record, and to do something like that was pretty painful. I don’t want to let that happen again.”
Smith with the Kirkwood Cup at the 2022 edition he won.
The three-time LIV winner and six-time PGA Tour champion also doesn’t think it’s a fait accompli he’ll win the Queensland PGA. “I would say I’ve got the most pressure on me out of everyone,” he said. “A lot of people are expecting me to come down here and just win. I really don’t think that’s the case. I’ve played with a lot of these guys growing up, and they’re really talented golfers as well, so it is going to take some of my best stuff this week to get the job done, and I’m aware of that.”
Smith will play this week, and the NSW Open on the Murray River in mid-November and the Australian PGA, with one eye on the Australian Open (November 28 to December 1) at co-hosts Kingston Heath and Victoria Golf Club. Smith has three Australian PGA titles (2017, 2018, 2022) but has never lifted the Stonehaven Cup. He and countryman Ash Hall lost in a playoff to superstar Jordan Spieth at the 2016 Australian Open at Royal Sydney.
“I think all the Aussie guys coming back from international tours want to win a couple of the big ones at the end of the year, it’s no secret,” he said. “For me, obviously, [the goal] is trying to get that Aussie Open; something I haven’t been able to do yet. But I’d [also] take another Kirkwood Cup (PGA).”
This year has been solid for Smith, with two runner-up results on LIV, but he’s without a win so far. He finished T-6 at the Masters at Augusta National and guided Ripper GC to a season-long teams victory on LIV. He’s hungry to put an individual win on the board.
“For me, not getting a win hurts out there this year,” he said. “I feel like I had a lot of good chances, I just wasn’t really able to get it done down the stretch. That’s the way golf is sometimes. I’ve been in that position before. It feels like you’re playing some really solid golf. It hurts a little bit, but in the long run, that does make you a better golfer.
“Usually, those stretches of golf have led to some really good stretches in the future, so hopefully that’s the trend that we’re going down here. “I’m preparing well and doing all the right stuff, but I still need to go out there and play some really solid golf hopefully to get it done.”
