Cameron Smith is ready for attention and expectation as LIV Golf comes to Adelaide

Hordes of people are heading to Adelaide just to see Cam Smith at the LIV event and the Aussie superstar is embracing the adulation of the masses.

Cam Smith will be the centre of attention in Adelaide this week. Picture by Michael Klein

Spectators at the normally sedate Victoria Golf Club were climbing trees, and even cherry pickers, to get their look at Cam Smith during last December’s Australian Open.

He wasn’t even playing his best, arriving in Melbourne a week after doing significant celebration, again with his ever-growing fan base, after taking out the Australian PGA in his home town of Brisbane.

Smith is the golfing everyman who can relate to the elite and the masses with in equal measure, his growing superstardom the common factor among the different fan bases set to swarm Adelaide this week for a look at the LIV posterboy back home again.

Australian legend Greg Norman, the LIV CEO and great defender of the new breakaway league, lauded the signing of reigning British Open champion Smith as the “best thing” that has happened for his fledgling tour.

Has to be my favourite Cameron Smith moment from #AUSPGA celebrations! Keen for an invite if he wins #AusOpenGolf this week! #xxxx@[e-mail]/CbQUcGYLFz

— Jonathan Uptin (@Jonathan_Uptin) November 30, 2022

That statement in itself is a sign of Smith’s starpower not just in Australia but the US too where he was, despite the presence of home grown legends like Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, as big an attraction for fans in Orlando as anyone.

Capturing his signature, for a reported $140 million sign on fee, was indeed a breakthrough moment for LIV but also confirmed Smith’s star status and as the 29-year-old prepared for his homecoming, he conceded it was a new element of his life he was coming to grips with.

“Yeah, yeah, a little bit. I definitely feel it, especially when I‘m back in Australia,” Smith told NCA NewsWire in Orlando as he prepared for the attention and expectation on arrival home.

“I expect to play really good golf and sometimes that can be a bit of a hindrance. It’s kind of easy to get ahead of yourself and really want to do it rather than just kind of going through the motions, ticking the boxes and just letting it happen.”

Cameron Smith among the masses at Victoria Golf Club Picture by Michael Klein

Smith feeds off the new team environment, as captain of “Ripper GC” too, loving the “mojo” it has created for him, knowing too the reliance on him to deliver, which fuels his competitive desires which plenty thought he may lose after such a massive, upfront, cash windfall.

“I think we’ve got a really good team kind of mojo. Since being here this year, I don’t think any of us would say that we’ve played to our full potential,” he said.

“We’ve had a couple of OK finishes. And I think that the team stuff definitely gives you a bit of a kick in the butt when, you know, when you you’ve had a few bad holes and you just want to get you know, stay in, especially when you score counts.”

When Smith joined LIV, amid his best ever year on the PGA Tour and just after capturing his first major at the British Open, the critics came, and came hard.

Some accused Norman of ruining Smith’s career, others spoke about the potential legacy he was foregoing.

Smith did his best to put the shutters up, bunkering down in his fishing boat at home in Florida, or curating his magnificent lawns as he loves to do.

He couldn’t escape it all, and is getting better at firing back, as he did taking to the main press centre at the Masters, having been offered the chance.

“I do hear some stuff from time to time,” Smith said of the criticism.

“But I do a really good job of letting golf be golf and kind of when I’m at home, you know, the further I can stay away from golf and reading all the stuff is better for me and it’s worked in the past, so there’s no reason for, you know, for me to switch it up.”

Cameron Smith was a popular man at the Australian Open. . Picture by Michael Klein

At Augusta his answer to question about staying “relevant” after moving to LIV gave an indication about how much Smith disregards the critics too.

“I just think there‘s too much rubbish going on, basically,” he said.

“We are all happy where we are. As the LIV Tour grows and the fields get deeper and stronger and all that stuff unfolds, it’s just going to be better and better. I can’t wait to see it unfold personally.”

Smith is going to be a part of that ongoing evolution too, looking to “clean up” a few of LIV’s messier edges with Norman adamant more top-line players will be joining the tour as early as 2024.

But Smith is still adamant his move has provided everything he hoped for, knowing better is yet to come.

“Yeah, it is everything I expected,” he said.

“I think I think they‘ve still got a little bit of cleaning up to do with just certain things. Nothing major. I think the product is really good.

“And you know, this is only our 10th or 11th event and, and yeah, and to see what it’s done, you know, from the middle of last year to now is pretty amazing.

“And it definitely shook up the golf world a little bit, which is a bloody good thing.”

Originally published as Cameron Smith is ready for attention and expectation as LIV Golf comes to Adelaide