Cameron Smith

Cameron Smith, an Australian professional golfer born on 18 August 1993, competes in the LIV Golf League. His biggest win came at the 2022 Open Championship, and he has five additional PGA Tour victories, including the 2022 Players Championship. He has also claimed the Australian PGA Championship three times.

Smith grew up in Bray Park, a northern suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, and attended Pine Rivers State High School. He started playing golf at age two at Wantima Country Club, a small course near Brisbane where his father Des worked as a printer and served as club captain. His mother Sharon worked at a local department store, and he has a sister named Mel. In 2010, he represented Australia in the boys’ division of the Trans Tasman Cup alongside Ryan Peake.

Turning professional in 2013, Smith began on the PGA Tour of Australasia. He tied for second at the 2015 Coca-Cola Queensland PGA Championship and the 2016 Emirates Australian Open. On the Asian Tour in 2014, he recorded seven top-10 finishes and ended fifth on the Order of Merit, with his best result a tie for second at the 2014 CIMB Niaga Indonesian Masters. His first PGA Tour event was the co-sanctioned CIMB Classic in October 2014, where he tied for fifth.

In April 2015, Smith tied for 15th at the RBC Heritage on a sponsor’s exemption. After qualifying for the 2015 U.S. Open, his top-4 finish earned him an invitation to the 2016 Masters and Special Temporary Membership on the PGA Tour for the rest of 2015. He secured his 2015–16 PGA Tour card by earning enough as a non-member to rank among the top 125 on the money list. In 2016, he finished 157th in the FedEx Cup standings but regained his tour card for 2017 after a runner-up finish at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship during the Web.com Tour Finals.

Smith’s first PGA Tour win came in May 2017 at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, a team event with Jonas Blixt. They made no bogeys and beat Scott Brown and Kevin Kisner in a playoff. That season, he also tied for sixth at the Valero Texas Open and seventh at the Wyndham Championship, finishing 46th in the FedEx Cup. He started the next season with a tie for fifth at the CIMB Classic and a third-place finish at the CJ Cup, then placed fourth at the Emirates Australian Open before winning the Australian PGA Championship in a playoff over Jordan Zunic. In December 2018, he defended that title by two strokes over Marc Leishman.

At the 2019 Presidents Cup in Melbourne, Smith played for the International team, which lost 16–14. He went 1–1–1, including a win over Justin Thomas in Sunday singles. In January 2020, he won the Sony Open in Hawaii in a playoff against Brendan Steele for his first individual PGA Tour victory. At the 2020 Masters, he became the first golfer to shoot all four rounds in the 60s (67-68-69-69). In April 2021, he won the Zurich Classic again, this time with Marc Leishman, beating Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel in a playoff.

Smith competed in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in July/August 2021, finishing tenth at 14 under par despite shooting 66 in the final two rounds. In January 2022, he won the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua with a PGA Tour record 34 under par, one stroke ahead of Jon Rahm. That March, he won The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, becoming the fifth Australian to do so, after hitting his second shot into the water on the final hole but managing a bogey to win by one over Anirban Lahiri.

In July, he captured his first major at the 150th Open Championship at St Andrews, shooting a final-round 64 to come from four back and win by one over Cameron Young and two over Rory McIlroy. During the FedEx Cup Playoffs, a hip injury limited him, and he skipped the BMW Championship. He ended the PGA Tour season by winning the PGA Player of the Year award. In November, he won the Fortinet Australian PGA Championship for the third time.

In late August 2022, after the Tour Championship, Smith joined LIV Golf, a move that had been rumored since The Open. He tied for fourth in his first LIV start in Boston, then won his second start with rounds of 66, 68, and 69 to finish 13 under, three shots ahead of Dustin Johnson and Peter Uihlein. He earned over $5 million from his first four LIV events.

As an amateur, Smith won the 2011 Australian Boys’ Amateur, Australian Amateur Stroke Play, and Victorian Junior Masters.