More than two years without a win, Cameron Smith goes into the Australian Open this week at Royal Melbourne with another streak he is trying to end.
He has yet to make a 36-hole cut in the seven tournaments he has played this year outside of the LIV Golf League, including the four majors. Smith also missed the cut at the Dunhill Links Championship, the Saudi International and the Australian PGA Championship last week.
“Golf doesn’t owe me anything,” Smith said Tuesday at Royal Melbourne. “I have to go out there and work and I think throughout the season it’s been a case of hit one or two bad shots here and there and it’s like, ‘Oh, here we go again’ type of thing.”
Last week was one of those moments. He opened with a 69 and then finished with a double bogey at Royal Queensland for a 75 to miss the cut by four shots. That led Smith to say last Friday, “I think it is in my head.”
He missed four of those seven cuts by three shots or more. It hasn’t been much better elsewhere. On the 54-hole, no-cut LIV Golf League, Smith had only five top-10s in the 13 individual tournaments, with his best finish a tie for fifth in Mexico City.
“I do know what the answer is and that’s just to keep working hard and be patient,” Smith said in Brisbane. “I’ve tried to be patient, I’ve tried to do all the right stuff. It’s just, for whatever reason, not coming together on the golf course. I don’t think about golf often, but definitely in the last couple of months I have thought about it a lot. Yeah. I just want to get back to where I was.”
The world ranking is skewed because LIV does not get world ranking points. But the missed cuts have taken a toll. Smith ended last year at No. 79 in the world. He goes into his final tournament of the year at the Australian Open at No. 354.