‘I was holding back tears’: Why Cameron Smith hasn’t quite had his fill of Claret Jug

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Royal Liverpool: Cameron Smith arrived in Hoylake on Saturday in good time to complete his final task as the 2022 British Open champion: handing the Claret Jug back to the R&A. It was a routine job, but it almost got the better of him.

“I thought I was going to do all right, but I was actually holding back from tears,” he said. “A bit of a moment, I guess, that crept up on me.”

The Australian world No.7 has had one of the more unusual reigns as Open champion, all but admitting he had signed for the LIV rebel tour only minutes after landing his first major title with one of the great final rounds in golf history, an eight-under 64, after setting out four shots off the lead. Little has been seen of him on TV screens since, and with LIV’s YouTube offerings attracting poor viewing figures, he became something of an absentee champion.

However, his new itinerary offered more scope to return home. He played in the Adelaide LIV event, the Australian Open and won the Australian PGA after being away for three years because of COVID restrictions.

“Probably the funniest thing I did with the Jug was I took it back to my home club in Brisbane and it was actually timed perfectly,” he said. “They had their presentation night where they present the club champion with the trophy, and all the different events they had throughout the year.

“It was one of the first nights I got back to Australia, so I brought the Claret Jug there, had all the members there, and, yeah, had a ripping night. For a little country club outside of Brisbane to have the Claret Jug in it, I think was a pretty cool moment.”

Cameron Smith during a practice round at Hoylake.Credit: AP

Now Smith’s plan is to get it back. To that end, he played a few holes in high winds on Sunday and joined Adam Scott, a LIV refusenik, on the practice range on Monday before heading off to check the course again.

Smith also threw his support behind Greg Norman, whose position as the Saudi-backed rebel tour’s CEO has been in the spotlight since details of the proposed merger between the PGA, European and LIV tours materialised.

“I’ve kind of become a bit of a friend of Greg’s, I guess, the last eight or nine months,” Smith said.

“I think he’s doing a great job for our tour. He’s looking out for our best interests. That’s all you can ask of a guy that’s running the show. Yeah, I’d love to see him keep on.”

Cameron Smith and R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers with the Claret Jug on Monday.Credit: Reuters

Smith has been acclimatising in the UK for a few weeks, winning the last LIV event – his second victory in 13 starts – at the Centurion club in Hertfordshire this month. He believes he’s in better shape now than when he won at St Andrews with the joint-lowest to-par score in a major, 20 under.

“I think I’m actually a better golfer now than what I was last year,” he said. “I think the stuff that I had to clean up is progressing. It’s still a little bit of a work in progress. My five iron and up has always been a bit of a struggle for me, and that’s an area of the game that we’ve worked on probably harder than we have in the past. I feel like it’s right there. It just all has to come together.

“The first round I had at Centurion a couple of weeks ago was the first time where I felt like it had all come together, and then the driver, again, wasn’t my best friend on the weekend there. But I managed to kind of scramble out a good week.”

Smith also has an opportunity to become the first man to win back-to-back Opens since Padraig Harrington in 2007-08. He will attempt to do so at the same place where the late Peter Thomson made it three in a row in 1956. The Hoylake layout still has a deceptively benign and relatively flat look but, unlike some of the other links courses on the Open rotation, it invariably produces a name champion. Rory McIlroy won in 2014, and Tiger Woods in 2006. Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen, the two big names of the between-the-wars years, also got the job done here.

Rory McIlroy won the previous British Open held at Hoylake in 2014.Credit: Getty Images

The layout has been tweaked this year, with par reduced from 72 to 71. Two of the par fives are now more than 600 yards – including the 18th – and the old par-three 15th has been turned 180 degrees to become the 136-yard 17th. The raised green, with deep treacherous bunkers either side, faces the Irish Sea. Anything too long will be in trouble by the beach, and the tee shot is invariably into a prevailing wind.

“It’s a tough hole,” Smith said. “We played it yesterday and it was straight into the wind, 30 or 40 miles an hour, and it was not a tee shot that you want to have. I think I hit a seven iron in there.

“There’s not much room for error up there, and I think it’ll be a really exciting finish to an Open Championship for sure. I think it’s a great hole.”

Smith will be hoping that’s still his opinion come Sunday, when the fourth Ashes Test is also scheduled to finish with Australia leading 2-1. A double celebration is a possibility.

“That would be unreal,” Smith said. “The first three Tests have been amazing. We’ve been able to put it on the radio or put it on the TV in most cases.

“Yeah, hopefully the Aussie boys can get it done this week. I think going into a fifth Test [with the series still alive] would be – I don’t know, could be a bad thing. I’d just like them to get it done this week.”

with AAP

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