HOYLAKE, ENGLAND | We don’t know whether Cameron Smith will play as well at Hoylake as he did over the Old Course at St Andrews, a year ago, but what can safely be said is that the press conference he gave on Monday was light years removed from the frenzied edition which followed his winning of the Claret Jug last summer.
That day, the Aussie had loved everything from the walk up the 18th (even if he would like to have had a few more shots up his sleeve), to the ceremony, to the evening celebrations in the Old Course Hotel. What is more, all had been going well at his press conference until he was asked if there was any truth in the suggestion he was “going to LIV.” Which, of course, there was.
Possibly because he is not as good a liar as he is golfer, Smith went on the defensive. Feigning shock, he said: “I’ve just won the British Open and you’re asking me that. I think that’s pretty not nice.”
“I was actually holding back from tears. A bit of a moment, I guess, that crept up on me.” – Cameron Smith
There was a repeat of the question, followed by what was more or less a repeat of the answer. “My team worries about that stuff. I’m just here to win golf tournaments.”
Next, however, there was that delicious moment when what had to be a good friend in the press room came to his aid with a 180-degree switch of subject.
“Did you,” he asked, in the manner of one who had a question of rather more substance to deliver, “have spaghetti bolognese for supper last night?”
And that was that.
On Monday afternoon at Royal Liverpool, Smith admitted that no one, not even his manager, had warned him the LIV question was inevitable.
“Internally, I probably knew it was going to get asked but, yeah, there was no one there really backing me up, no one to tell me, ‘You’re going to get asked this and that and this is what you’re going to say.’ It was just my brain and my heart telling me what I thought was right,” he said.
Interestingly, Smith doubted he would have replied any differently if he had been more prepared.
He added that he had nothing against the person who had asked the LIV question and, looking back, he seemed to have come to the conclusion that it was “just a guy trying to do his job.”
If that was good to hear, so, too, was what had happened when he handed back the Claret Jug to Martin Slumbers, chief executive of the R&A, on Monday. Last year, people were left with the impression that the Claret Jug was the equivalent of a play-thing for the easygoing Aussie rather than the famously historic trophy that it is. He doubted he would think twice as he gave it back but, as he said, “I was actually holding back from tears. A bit of a moment, I guess, that crept up on me.”
Straightaway, Smith had this feeling that he wanted it back.
“You know you can win it again,” said one of the writers.
“That’s what I’ve been saying to all my mates,” Smith replied.
He has plenty of those and how touching was it when, after he won the recent LIV Golf event at the Centurion Club near London, Smith talked less about himself and his $4 million victory than how gutted he was to have missed the putt which would have won him another $3 million to share among his Rippers teammates. As it was, the four players had only $1.5 million to split among them.
Fellow Aussie Adam Scott is one of Smith’s closest friends and always has been. Speaking at the Genesis Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club last week, Scott cringed when GGP asked what he had thought of Smith’s press conference last year at St Andrews: “He didn’t know he was going to win the Open; it was awkward for him.”
It had not surprised Scott at all that people had been given the wrong impression of the guy.
“The truth is that he’s really good fun to be around,” Scott said. “We’ve been good friends for years and we’ve never stopped having practice rounds at the majors. He’s a great golfer, and probably the most competitive player I’ve ever met.”
His answer was that the person was the same – he said he would get a clip around the ears from his dad if that were not the case — and that his golf was probably a bit better.
Here, Scott was not talking about Smith taking money off him in those practice games. Rather it was the other way round.
“Cam plays lousily on the practice days and brilliantly when it matters,” chuckled the 2013 Masters champion.
On Monday before the Open, Cam Smith was asked how he would assess Cam Smith the person and Cam Smith the golfer a year on from everything that had happened to him. His answer was that the person was the same – he said he would get a clip around the ears from his dad if that were not the case — and that his golf was probably a bit better. He had struggled with his driver at Centurion, “but it all feels really close.”
On the grounds that Adam Scott’s assessment was likely to be spot on, the rest of us should probably ignore the practice days and wait until Thursday to come to our conclusions.
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