Cameron

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Cameron Smith’s story shows that he has had a lifetime love affair with the game of golf.

When he was just two years old, he started playing at Wantima Country Club, in the northern suburbs of his home city of Brisbane.

By 2013, the year in which he turned 20, he had become a professional and was playing on the PGA Tour of Australasia. The following year saw him plying his trade on the Asian Tour, and playing for the first time on the PGA Tour, when he tied for fifth at the CIMB Classic, an event in Kuala Lumpur that was co-sanctioned by both tours.

Smith opened a few eyes in 2015 when he tied for fourth in his first major, the U.S. Open. Two sub-par rounds at the weekend saw him finish just two shots behind the winner, Jordan Spieth.

More victories followed in 2017 and 2018, including wins in both years at the Australian PGA Championship. There were also top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour that showed he was one of the rising stars of the game.

As 2022 dawned, Cameron Smith had finished in the top 10 at Augusta National three times in the previous four years. Two years earlier, he was the first man to record four rounds in the 60s but ended five shots behind Dustin Johnson.

It was the same story at the Masters in 2022, when he competed fiercely throughout before tying for third, five shots behind champion Scottie Scheffler.

He says of Augusta: “It’s a place I love so much and a place where I think I’ve played the best golf I’ve ever played, and been pipped at the line a few times.

“It’s one of those events where I want it so bad and I put pressure on myself to play well. I’ll keep doing what I have done and one of these years I can get one. If it’s to be, it’s to be.”

It was certainly meant to be just a couple of weeks before the Masters, when Smith won The Players Championship, the prestigious spring-time event staged at TPC Sawgrass in Florida.

Smith explains his unflappable demeanor in situations like this by saying his mindset is “I’ve done the work, I’m so prepared, there’s no reason why I can’t win this” rather than “I have to win this”.

Buoyed by his Players Championship victory, Cameron Smith went into The Open Championship in 2022 with high hopes of clinching his first major victory.

He told the LIV Golf Fairway To Heaven podcast: “I’d played well at the start of that season. There was a bit of a lull after the Players win, but I just kept working hard and I knew some good stuff was in the works.

“I kept telling myself I was ready. I’d been close in a few Majors before and there was no reason why I couldn’t win one.”

That quiet self-belief was fully justified at St. Andrews, the Home of Golf, although Smith dropped back from the halfway lead and went into the final round four shots off the pace.

A Sunday 64 brought him a one-shot victory and made him the fifth Australian to lift the Claret Jug – the first since Greg Norman in 1993.

Just a few weeks after his St. Andrews glory, Cameron Smith signed with LIV Golf and became the captain of Ripper GC, a team with a distinctly Australian flavor.

In his second LIV Golf event, in Chicago, Smith won the individual prize, holding off Dustin Johnson and Peter Uhlein by three shots.

“It was nice to get that one off the chest so early,” says Smith. If he proved a point with victory in the Windy City, he reinforced it with two victories in 2023 at the London and Bedminster events.

Those wins, and several other high finishes, put him second in the overall standings in 2023. He didn't add any individual victories in 2024, but there was delight for Ripper GC fans as their heroes won the Team Championship.

One of the main motivations for Smith to join LIV Golf was the chance to have an offseason and spend time at home with family in his beloved Australia.

Playing year-round was, he said, one of the biggest sacrifices of becoming a pro golfer. He added: “To be able to get that back [time at home] and still play professional golf made it a no-brainer for me. Spending months at home is something money can’t buy.”

Smith, a firm favorite with the fans who flock to LIV Golf events, is clearly proud that a team full of Aussies – his teammates in 2024 were Marc Leishman, Lucas Herbert, and Matt Jones – topped the standings.

Cameron Smith admits he was shy when he was first introduced by friends in 2021 to Dr Shanel Naoum, who would become his wife at a wedding in Brisbane two years later.

Shanel is a chiropractor who grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and Smith was impressed by her work ethic. “She’s a really hard worker, while I’m a pretty lazy practicer… that kicked me up the butt!”

It may be more than coincidence that, following their meeting in late 2021, Smith went on to have such a stellar year in 2022 with wins at The Players Championship, The Open, and LIV Golf Invitational Chicago.

The couple now live in Jacksonville, in a house he purchased in 2020. They also have a home in Brisbane where they stay while he spends time with family in the offseason. 

Cameron Smith has been sporting his famous mullet since 2015, when he was just breaking into the upper echelons of the golfing world. Speaking in 2021, he said: “I feel like it’s part of me now.”

So there was consternation when the Ripper GC social media feeds announced in early 2024 that Smith had suddenly decided to shave it off, declaring: “I was just bored of the mullet.”

The post, accompanied by a picture of Smith with short back and sides, sent shock waves around the world … until everybody realized that the date was April 1.

Ripper GC later posted: “We’ve had a bit of fun on April Fools’ Day, but no need to worry because the Cam Smith mullet is alive and well.”

Since 2016, Australia’s current top golfer has funded the Cameron Smith Scholarship. Smith has teamed up with Golf Australia as part of the Give Back program, through which elite sportspeople repay some of their funding by helping to finance the stars of the future.

Each year, two promising young Aussie players get the chance to spend time with Smith in Florida to learn from the master.

“The Cameron Smith Scholarship is an extremely valuable tool for our High Performance program,” says Golf Australia’s High Performance Director Tony Meyer.

“We’re eternally grateful to Cam that he has taken this project on and that he is so genuinely invested in it.

“All the players who’ve been to stay and practice with Cam in the US have let us know that they gleaned a hell of a lot from it.”

Smith in turn says he enjoys watching the freedom and fearlessness with which the youngsters play the game.

As for Cameron Smith’s vision of his own future, he says simply that he wants to keep getting better – because “that takes care of a lot of other things you want to tick off”.

Naturally, he would love to add another major to his collection and join the elite who have tasted victory in golf’s most prestigious events more than once. He is clearly motivated to lead Ripper GC to further triumphs in LIV Golf events.

Smith is unashamedly proud of his achievements, and there can be little doubt that the resilience that runs through him like a streak of iron will propel him to further success on golf courses across the world.

He has the potential to stay at the peak of the sport for many years to come. But you sense there will always be that understated simplicity to the way he views himself and his place in the world of golf.

As the man, the myth, the mullet puts it: “To do what I love, and to do it well and make other people proud, is pretty cool.”