Shot down: Smith in the thick of drama as Golf Australia hits back at course critics

Rising Australian golf star Elvis Smylie has defended the pace he plays at after superstar playing partner and major winner Cameron Smith said he felt rushed during his disastrous second round, when he dropped five shots to tumble to 18th on the Australian Open leaderboard.

Smylie and Smith were in the same group when “put on the clock” during the final round of the Australian PGA last Sunday while playing with Marc Leishman. On Friday, the same thing happened when the pair were partnered with Frenchman Victor Perez, with golf officials well aware slow play turns fans off the game.

Cameron Smith during the Australian OpenCredit: Getty Images

Smith blamed his poor decision-making for his score but said he didn’t like playing under that sort of pressure, and didn’t disguise his thoughts particularly well.

“I don’t get put on the clock too often. I feel like we do a pretty good job. There is a common denominator there that is a little bit slower,” Smith said.

“It’s not something I like because I feel like I am a pretty fast-paced player as it is ... I feel like I do my best out there to play as quick as I can and then I feel like I’m running around.”

When asked whether he would have a word to the “common denominator”, Smith said “No, no, I won’t. It’s not my job ... I think there are better ways to go about that stuff, but that is another topic.”

Australian PGA champion Smylie, who shot an eight-under-par 64 to finish at nine under, said he was playing his role in keeping the pace up.

“It’s a group thing. It’s not an individual [thing] ... whenever I have to keep up with the pace of play I do a good job, myself,” Smylie said. “It’s nothing to be worried about.”

Lucas Herbert leads the Australian OpenCredit: Getty Images

The situation had Smith on edge when he walked to Kingston Heath’s famous 15th, arguably Australia’s most famous par-three hole and one the British Open winner says is “definitely up there with the great par threes around the world.”

The wind was picking up and Smylie was charging, having fired six birdies to draw one behind Australia’s biggest golfing drawcard.

“It didn’t seem like we were playing that slow, and it felt like we were just rushing, and I made some really poor choices, mentally,” Smith said.

Smith was within reach of the lead his LIV teammate Lucas Herbert had built from the opening day – not only carrying his own hopes of winning his national title for the first time but dragging the crowds through the gates and along the softer fairways on display at Kingston Heath.

But the 15th is not the place to stabilise a round. With the hole once a blind par four, golf architect Alister MacKenzie transformed it into a brutal par three with bunkers deep enough for people to vanish into.

Earlier that morning, professional golfer and course designer Mike Clayton described the hole as “one of the best half dozen par threes in Australia, which is a really high bar.”

“It’s an example of Mackenzie and [Mick] Morcom, who built it really, being super bold and building a championship course,” Clayton said.

By mid-afternoon the wind was blowing left towards the dangerous bunker beside the pin, making life hard as Smylie nailed his iron near the pin after aiming for the second pillar on the grandstand behind the hole where beers are served, but quiet signs are relatively well respected.

“It plays a little bit better when it’s into the wind,” Smith said. “Today was kind of downwind, but it’s still a really tough hole. It’s always fun with wedges in your hand and kind of thinking about what you have to do.”

Smith’s ball started right and stayed there, his ball crashing into the right-side bunker and taking his hopes of joining Herbert at the top of the leaderboard by the end of day two with him.

“It’s a great hole and you’ve got to hit a great shot, and if it wasn’t that scary then it would not be the hole that it is,” Clayton said. “If you could go in there, and it didn’t matter [where], then it wouldn’t be the same hole.”

Smith found out at that point it did matter. Despite making a brilliant shot out of the sand trap, he missed the putt for par to swap places with the 22-year-old rising star Smylie, who drained his eighth birdie for the round to momentarily stick his nose ahead of one of his mentors and British Open champion.

Whether the course was slow, as Smith had forcefully noted, had no relevance at that moment. He shot a double bogey on the 16th to confirm his slide down the leaderboard, putting the pressure on him to play well on what is expected to be a wild weekend.

At the end of the round he was six under, eight off the lead and three shots behind Smylie with 16 players between Smith and Herbert, who, at 14 under, is four shots ahead of American Ryggs Johnston after backing up his opening 63 with a 66 in the second round.

“[A] four-shot lead ... right where I wanted it coming into the weekend,” Herbert said.

“I’m expecting [Smith] to make a run.”

Despite his stumble, Smith is the man everyone is looking at as the weekend arrives, showing how vital his presence in Australia is to this country’s golfing summer.

But the sandbelt is biting back.

“It started playing pretty tough,” Smith said. “The front nine was a light breeze, but it was switching around here there and everywhere so that was tough but that back nine was brutal.”

Ever since Smith joined LIV Golf just months after being crowned British Open champion, he has made it clear the financial freedom the decision gave him would allow him to have more of a presence in Australia’s summer of golf.

James Sutherland hits back at ‘conspiracy theories’

Golf Australia is adamant the curators of Kingston Heath and Victoria Golf Club were instructed to have the courses play “hard and fast” for this year’s men’s and women’s Australian Open as the future format and location of the tournament remains unclear.

Debate has raged since Cameron Smith criticised the way the courses had been prepared, describing the rain as merely “a bullshit excuse”.

Hannah Green said after her opening round that the courses had been made easier to cater for the fact both men and women were playing at the same time. An all-abilities tournament is also occurring over the four days.

Golf Australia chief executive James Sutherland.Credit: Simon Schluter

However, Golf Australia CEO James Sutherland, who had remained silent during the furore on Thursday despite requests for comment from this masthead, told 3AW on Friday their instructions had been clear.

“[The] instructions were a hard and fast sandbelt,” Sutherland said.

“Weather played a part ... we wanted the greens to be hard and fast, and that was our instructions.”

Melbourne was pelted with rain leading up to the tournament, with a deluge occurring in the bayside suburbs on Wednesday afternoon. More wild weather is forecast for the weekend.

Sutherland said he wasn’t concerned about Smith’s comments, saying there was “not much I haven’t heard before from the players around their concerns”.

The controversy has only added to the discussion around the tournament, which heads into the weekend with its future format and location for next year unclear.

South Australia hosts the LIV Golf in February and there has been speculation they might try to secure the men’s or women’s Australian Open in that timeslot in the future, although the South Australian premier’s office said no proposal had been lodged.

The Victorian government has remained non-committal as discussions continue about keeping the tournament in Melbourne’s sandbelt, with Sutherland saying he wanted to oversee a successful 2024 Australian Open before progressing talks with the government.

Kingston Heath and Victoria hosted the tournament in 2022 before it returned to NSW in 2023, with NSW hosting the Australian Open every year from 2006-2020 (no tournament was held during 2021 due to COVID).

“We are focused on delivering a high-quality 2024 Australian Open this week on Melbourne’s famous sandbelt. It’s been pleasing to see Australia’s best golfers taking on a strong international field in front of packed crowds across the first two days at Kingston Heath and the Victoria Golf Club,” Sutherland said in a statement.

“We understand the focus on the future of the Australian Open, as all three championships mean so much to so many, so we will continue to consult with key stakeholders to ensure the success of the event moving forward. As the golf world continues to evolve, Golf Australia will remain agile and adaptable to deliver the best product for our players, the Tours, fans, partners and beyond.”

Teenager the shock leader after women’s second round

AAP

Teenage amateur Hyojin Yang is the shock halfway leader after holding her nerve during a tense second round of the women’s Australian Open.

The 17-year-old South Korean amateur turned a first-round co-lead into an outright one-shot buffer with a steely two-under-par 71 at Kingston Heath.

At eight under, Yang’s closest pursuers are fellow Korean, former world No.1 and 2013 Australian Open champion Jiyai Shin, and 20-year-old Queenslander Justice Bosio.

Contesting only her fourth professional tournament after a distinguished amateur career, Bosio had snatched the clubhouse lead from world No.6 Hannah Green with a birdie at her last hole in a fine second-round 69 at Victoria GC.

Now she stands two rounds away from potentially taking the Australian Open trophy back to Caboolture.

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