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AUGUSTA, Ga. – After signing for 4-under 68, Cameron Smith was asked by ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt if he wanted to start with recapping the beginning, middle or end of his round.
“The middle is perfect,” Smith said.
Was it ever. Smith made eight birdies in a span of 12 holes beginning at Augusta National Golf Club’s fifth hole to grab the early lead at the 86th Masters. Only a pair of double bogeys at the start and end of his round marred an otherwise flawless day, which was still good enough for a one-stroke lead over a trio of golfers among the early finishers.
Smith found trouble at the opening hole when his tee shot caught the right fairway bunker, hit the lip with his second and airmailed the green with his third. He didn’t make a birdie until the fifth hole when he pulled his second left of the green. But Smith’s short game is “filthy good,” said fellow Aussie Lucas Herbert, and all Smith did was chip in from off the green to jump start his round.
“His short game is ridiculous and it’s been ridiculous for 15 years,” Herbert said. “He’d be under a tree, trying to carry a bunker to a short-sided pin and I remember him trying to hit the lip in the middle of a tournament. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ He was just so good inside 100 yards. It makes him very easy to dislike.”
The chip in opened the flood gates for Smith and there wasn’t much for him to complain about until he finished with another double bogey.
Of his play between the bookend doubles, Smith said, “The stuff in between was pretty good.”
Smith stuffed his tee shot near the hole at 6 for birdie, the first of three deuces on the card with birdies also at Nos. 12 and 16. As further proof that his irons were dialed in, Smith converted a pair of birdie putts inside 10 feet at Nos. 8 and 9. He added a short birdie out at 14, the first of three straight, hoisting a cut wedge he called his favorite shot that landed past the hole and dance to a stop within 5 feet.
“I like to see them spin,” he said.
Smith was cruising along at 6 under for the day and 8 under since the fourth when he sprayed his tee shot at 18 to the right into the pine straw, and was forced to punch out. His third shot ended up some 50 feet short of the hole. His par putt raced by and he missed the comebacker. Smith described it as a frustrating finish, but noted he had already moved on.
“The less you guys bring it up, the less I will think about it,” he said.
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But it was another impressive performance nonetheless for Smith, who won the Players Championship three weeks ago, and has shown a flair for Augusta National, recording two top-10s and a runner-up finish in five previous appearances. The World No. 6 was a stroke better than World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, Chile’s Joaquin Niemann, and former Masters champion Danny Willett. Thirteen months after being injured in a gruesome car crash, Tiger Woods returned to shoot 1-under 71. Smith played one group ahead of Woods and found himself stopping to watch the five-time Masters champion play like the thousands of patrons who tracked his every step.
“You can’t not watch him,” Smith said. “He’s unreal.”
Three-time Masters champion Gary Player said more or less the same of Smith’s play of late.
“This guy can really putt. There’s so much said about long hitting. Long hitting is an asset, but it’s not a necessity. What wins golf tournaments is the mind and putting, and this guy, he’s cocky, he’s confident, which you’ve got to be, and he’s one hell of a putter,” Player said, while also commenting on Smith’s trademark mullet and how it would go over with the green coats should he be victorious on Sunday. “I’d love to see how he’s accepted with that long hair in the clubhouse. They might tell him to have a haircut.”
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