Golf: Karrie Webb reveals the day she beat Cam Smith – two weeks before he won the British Open

Karrie Webb has recalled the day she played Cam Smith for a bottle of wine. The 47-year-old was ahead when the rain came. Smith paid up – and two weeks later, he won the British Open.

Karrie Webb has recalled beating Cameron Smith just weeks before his British Open crown. Picture: AA{

Karrie Webb versus Cam Smith. Eighteen holes off the stick. ­Winner gets a bottle of plonk.

“I was ahead when we got rained out,” the Hall-of-Famer says of their secret hit in June. “He paid up the bet. It was right before he headed to the Scottish and Open championships.

“The bet was for a bottle of wine but a bottle of Grange (the good stuff) was what he ended up paying me with.

“If he told me on the first tee we were playing for a bottle of Grange I probably wouldn’t have played so good. We’ve got to have a drink to celebrate.

“I had him sign the bottle and said, ‘I’m not going to drink this until one of us wins a big tournament – which will probably be you.’ And yeah, two weeks later, he did.”

Now Webb and Smith are contesting the same tournament. Sort of. Simultaneous Australian Opens begin on Thursday.

Bravo to Golf Australia boss James Sutherland for holding an event more madcap than your local club’s Friday arvo chicken run: 264 players, two genders, eight rounds, two courses, different tee boxes, contrasting par scores, four cuts, more leaderboards around Melbourne’s Sandbelt than speed cameras on the Hume Highway, shuttle buses and motorised carts zipping around like dodgem cars.

We’re just one administrative bungle away from Smith being thrown into a playoff against Minjee Lee and Hannah Green.

The 47-year-old Webb must be hitting ’em all right if she can hold her own against Smith. She reckons it was about the 14th or 15th hole when they ran for the clubhouse.

The seven-time major winner and five-time Australian Open champion says of her chances of upstaging twenty-something ­superstars Lee and Green: “I’m just trying not to wear myself out. I’m not playing as much golf now so I’m cautious of not being exhausted before I tee off on Thursday. I’m definitely more rusty … but I feel like I’ve played a lot of Sandbelt golf in my career, and if I can get off to a half-decent start and get the juices flowing and feel good out there, you never know what might happen.

“As good as golf has been to me, and the magic I have created throughout my career, I don’t think you ever think there’s none left.”

The world’s first dual-gender national championships are an ­enterprising and experimental venture.

The Stonehaven Cup and the Patricia Bridges Bowl will be up for grabs. How will the national ­chicken run work? Some of the holes will have more favourable tee boxes for women, up to 40m closer to the green. Some won’t. Some will have more forgiving par scores.

A long par four for the men may be a par five for the women. Most won’t. Prizemoney is the same: $1.7m for the winners.

The opening two rounds will be shared between Victoria Golf Club and Kingston Heath Golf Club. When a runaway leader hears the usual reaction after day one – it was like you were playing a different course out there! – he or she will be able to say, I was!

Cameron Smith will contest this year’s Australian Open. Picture: AFP

The cut on Friday night will ­reduce both fields to 30 players. Another 54-hole cut on Saturday will whittle it down to 30 men and 30 women for the championship Sunday.

The men’s event is like the good old days of the Melbourne Cup. Locals only, really, led by Smith, Adam Scott, Marc Leishman, Cam Davis, Lucas Herbert, Min Woo Lee and Kiwi Ryan Fox.

The women’s draw is more your modern Melbourne Cup. Lee and Green are joined by foreign raiders Jennifer Kupcho, Jiyai Shin, Xiyu Lin and Ashleigh Buhai.

Five of the world’s top 20 women are here, as are multiple major-winners champions Karrie Webb and Laura Davies. The 12-player Australian All Abilities Championship will be thrown into the mix as well.

It’s going to be a really exciting week,” Webb says. “The men and women together, the All Abilities, I think it sends such a great message about our sport.

Green became the first woman to win a professional, 72-hole mixed gender event at the low-tier TPS Murray River event in country NSW this year. She beat the blokes at their own game, they were all in the same field. The Open will have alternating men’s and women’s groups. Her fiance Jarryd Felton will be in the men’s division as she tries to add the ­national title to the major she won at the 2019 Women’s PGA Championship.

“My first Australian Open was when I was an amateur and I came top-20,” says the 25-year-old. “Since then I’ve had some good results. I had a third-place finish a few years ago.

“I feel like it’s such a hard ­trophy to win here at home but it’s definitely one I’m looking forward to trying to get my hands on this week.

“There’s lots of players out here who can lift that trophy. It’s great. As much as I love the attention at home, I want the competition, too.”