Very few can hit a shot like Cameron Smith did at The Masters. But he has one major problem

If it happened on a weekend golf trip, there would be a bunch of blokes with iPhone cameras standing behind him waiting to film the ensuing hilarity.

When it happened to be one of the world’s best golfers in the most intense environment, golf analysts sat a little straighter in their chairs and asked, ‘what is he doing here?’

Cameron Smith may not have come close to winning The Masters last year, but he came close to producing the shot of the year.

From the fairway bunker on the eighth hole with a below-the-feet lie, the Australian pulled out a mid-range metal wood. If he was an Olympic diver, the judges would look at the degree of difficulty of the intended plunge and think it would almost be impossible.

If Smith doesn’t make a perfect connection from the sand, there’s a strong chance he is still in the bunker and a par is now looking the best outcome on the hole.

Whack!

Smith clipped it from off the top of the sand, watched it bounce up the left side, roll across a steep ridge and then feed down to about 15 feet from the hole. He made the eagle putt.

“Everything suggests you’re not going to be able to hit that shot,” Smith’s coach Grant Field says. “To a) be able to attempt it, and b) hit the quality of shot he did is next level.

“We all know how talented he is and what he’s got available to him. Augusta [National golf course] generally brings out the best in him and his imagination around there, it just suits him. When he’s seeing those shots, that’s when he’s on his game.”

Even before Smith’s historic win in the 150th Open Championship at St Andrews in 2022, bursting into the mainstream consciousness of most Australians, there was a feeling the Queenslander would one day be destined to slip on the green jacket awarded to winners of the Masters.

He’s finished in the top five three times from his past six appearances, and returns as Australia’s best chance of just a second Masters win after Adam Scott in 2013.

Adam Scott and Cameron Smith enjoy a laugh during a practice round at Augusta.Credit: Getty

“It’s a place where you have to shape some of your shots and use your imagination,” Smith says in an interview with this masthead ahead of next week’s Masters at Augusta National. “It’s a place I really enjoy playing.”

Last month, Smith travelled from his Jacksonville base to Augusta for a familiarisation session with his dad, Des. He walked away happy.

As southern America emerged from its post-winter fog, the conditions at Augusta were slicker - on both the fairways and greens - than Smith expected.

“The course is looking unreal, but it was probably a lot firmer and faster than I expected that far out,” Smith says. “Hopefully, they can get some good weather leading into it, and it can be how we all want it to be.”

Smith might only be speaking for some of The Masters field, which will include fellow Australians Scott, Jason Day, Min Woo Lee, Cameron Davis and amateur Jasper Stubbs. A lot will be hoping Augusta’s famed glass-like putting greens and unforgiving terrain will be softer and easier.

But for Smith, he wants a brutal test of ball control.

To have a chance on Sunday, he knows he has to sort out his struggles with the driver.

The statistics from LIV’s 13 players featuring in The Masters are stark: Smith has the worst accuracy and shortest distance off the tee from the four events on the Saudi-backed circuit this year.

Granted, it’s only a small sample size, but just three players on LIV’s 55-man roster have hit fewer fairways than Smith (45.83 per cent) in 2024, a world away from top stars Jon Rahm (56.55 per cent) and Brooks Koepka (55.36 per cent). Smith is also 38th in driving distance (293.8 yards), but LIV’s No.1 ranked putter.

It prompted Smith to say before a strong showing when second in LIV’s event at Hong Kong last month, the erratic driver was “costing him tournaments”.

“For him, it’s always trying to match his arms and body [timing] better,” Field says. “When he does that he hits the ball really nice.

“But a lot more is made out of the driver than is actually there. It’s because the other stuff is so good [that people focus on it]. I don’t think it’s as bad as it’s made to be sometimes. Augusta has a little bit more room for him and he feels comfortable off most tee boxes around there.

“I think his game is in a much better space than this time last year.”

Says Smith: “There’s times where there is stuff to work out and things to work on your swing, but it definitely doesn’t feel that way at the moment. A lot of it is just about trusting it and letting it go once it feels good. I feel as though I’m doing all the right stuff [this year].”

With Smith’s hopes of featuring in a second Olympics Games fading - he’s now dropped to world No. 62 with LIV’s failure to secure official rankings points - he is pouring all his energy into becoming just the fourth Australian to win two men’s majors (Peter Thomson, Greg Norman and David Graham are the others).

“You just have to look at the list of guys who have done that, it’s a decent list of players,” Smith says. “For sure, it’s an amazing thing to win one. But to win multiple is everyone’s goal.

“Between The Masters and the Australian Open, as time goes on I feel like they’re the two ones I want to get in the bag pretty soon.”

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