While you were sleeping, Cameron Smith conquered the world

In years to come, hundreds of thousands more will claim to have watched Cameron Smith’s British Open triumph than truly did. In this, Smith is a victim of his own virtuosity. In a way, it is this that validates Smith’s achievement as one of the finest by any Australian sportsperson.

To put it another way, his might be the greatest win most of you have never seen.

Cameron Smith tees off the seventh hole during the fourth round.Credit: Getty Images

To explain: the singular thing about championship golf is that it is so impossibly hard to win. One good day is no guarantee of another. The same drive that clung to the fairway yesterday trickles off it today. Putts drop then, but not now.

Smith well knew this: the leader after two rounds, he seemed to play himself out of the running in the third round. He’d hit the ball as well as in rounds one and two, he said, but the gods were not with him. Calvinists don’t believe in too much of a good thing.

Smith from off the green on “the road hole”, the 17th.Credit: The Open

Great players win tournaments one week and miss the cut the next. You might have seen them this week: defending champ Collin Morikawa, former champions Phil Mickelson, Henrik Stenson, Louis Oosthuizen, Brooks Koepka too, all out at the halfway mark, and with them the greatest of our times, Tiger Woods, last seen mooching across the Swilcan Burn bridge, wan smile on his face.

Mickelson and Koepka are off to wallow in Greg Norman’s filthy lucre on the LIV tour, so they can keep walking.

Tiger Woods, left in Cameron Smith’s wake.Credit: Getty Images

Even if you get it all right, someone is liable to hit a freak shot out of nowhere to beat you. Ask Norman. Ask him again. See if he’ll lend you a quid while you’re at it.

Rory McIlroy and one of the putts that wouldn’t drop.Credit: Getty Images

Very few golfers ever have made success appear inevitable in the way that tennis players do. Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, most recently Woods. Australia is a golfing nation, and 12 Australian men now have won majors. But only three have done it more than once.

This was the reality that faced Smith on the first tee on Sunday. From four shots behind, he could play a flawless round and still not win. He knew he could shoot 64 - he’d done it on Friday - and in this field it would still not be enough.

Rory McIlroy, multiple major winner, former No.1, crowd favourite; Scottie Scheffler, the Masters champion, the reigning No.1; Korean Si Woo Kim; Viktor Hovland, not a big name, but top 10 in the rankings and anyway four shots ahead. Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth were lurking, too. Smith might steal a march on one or two of them, but surely not all?

In Australia, it was nearly midnight, the work and school week looming, and all over the country - after a quick flick to the bikes on SBS - screens dimmed and lights went out.

And next we knew, Cameron Smith had won the British Open.

As much as majors are impossible to win, someone must. Smith also knew this. He was as well credentialed as anyone. He was a top tenner, he’d been close at the Masters and US Open, he’d won this year’s Players Championship, the so-called fifth major. He was the best putter in the world. He had the game for this course. He had the mind for this day.

Suddenly, it was Friday all over again. The ball stayed in the fairways, and sat on the greens. The putts rolled just so. Smith said he just knew that once he got the ball somewhere on the green, the putt would go in. Seventeen greens in regulation, 28 putts in all.

Cameron Smith lines up his putt on the 16th green.Credit: Getty

This speaks of a strong mind, or at least an uncluttered one, unlike his hair. It’s that part of golf where psychology trumps motor skills, head rules hands. Smith kept knocking them on, and down.

Greg Norman and the many ways to lose.Credit: Stephen Munday/Allsport

Five birdies in a row at the start of the back nine, and those birdies were pigeons, and he was a cat. Behind him, McIlroy used his full quota of 36 putts. None were bad, but together they were too many. In one day, not the next. Those stern-faced gods at work: enough of a good thing, and not a jot more.

One Smith putt spoke for all. It’s already so famous it’s bound to become a postage stamp. From off the green on the famous 17th, it had to be aimed, measured, weighed and struck perfectly, and was. Pure Tiger Woods. After that, he could not lose and didn’t, other than very nearly his composure at the presentation ceremony. You can’t learn that on the range; there’s no-one to teach it.

Australia can be surer they have on their hands one hell of golfer, now that we’re awake to him.

Not just the British Open, St Andrews. Not any old year, the 150th. Not by grinding out a par round, but from four shots behind. In the annals of Australian sport, this trophy - like golf itself - is going to take a lot of beating.

Unless … but no, surely? There’s the grubby Norman bullion, and the queue forming at his door, and Smith’s tetchy answer to a question about it; for the first time for the day, he lacked conviction. One way never to miss the cut is not to have one, one way never to lose is to pocket endless winnings.

One way to lose your country’s newfound universal favour is to flout it. If only he would say it wasn’t so.

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.