After winning the Claret Jug two years prior, Cam Smith had wonderful memories of The Open; however, he also experienced one of the most difficult days of his career at Royal Troon.
Cam Smith, the previous Open champion, had a terrible day at Royal Troon, ending any chance of winning the claret jug for another year.
The Australian finished in a tie for 145th place, nearly at the bottom of the leaderboard with a nine-over-par round. Smith’s round began disastrously, with a triple at the second and a bogey at the first, out in the afternoon wave off the west coast of Scotland.
The LIV Golf star had some relief after making a birdie at three, but four more bogeys on his front nine put an end to any chance of getting into contention. Instead, Smith will have to shoot far below par in order to have any chance of making the cut on Friday.
Smith remarked, “Just a bad day, really.” “I mean, I wouldn’t have said that was possible if you had told me yesterday that I was going to shoot that. However, I had a bit of a rough start and wasn’t able to make any putts when I needed to to get back in the game. It was just a rough day with a few rough moments thrown in.
“Dude, this course is tough. lots of wind gusts. It’s difficult to keep the ball in the fairway, and you have to kind of guess when you land something short in the rough based on the bounces you get. It was harsh. It was a really tough golf test, and shooting below par required you to be at the top of your game.”
Smith wasn’t the only well-known figure to struggle on Thursday in the wind and rain in Ayrshire. While Rory McIlroy shot seven over, Tiger Woods and Rickie Fowler shot eight over. Wyndham Clarkm, the 2023 US Open champion, joined them at the wrong end of the leaderboard; at seven over, he is probably out of the running.
Smith was defeated by Royal Troon, as witnessed by fellow LIV stars Bryson DeChambeau, David Puig, Louis Oosthuizen, and John Catlin. Dechambeau finished at five-over after making a birdie on the par-five 16th, giving him some hope of climbing the leaderboard over the next three days.
But Puig shot a nine-over-par 80, meaning the young Spaniard is likely to miss the cut in his Open debut. While Charles Howell III recovers from an injury, Catlin has been a tremendous asset for DeChambeau’s Crushers team in recent weeks. However, after finishing at five over par, the 33-year-old faces the possibility of missing the cut at The Open for the third time in his career.
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