Cameron Smith's Routine is Working at Augusta as He's Ready For a Sunday Chase

The hottest player in golf is Masters leader Scottie Scheffler, but Cameron Smith isn't far behind. And he loves Augusta National.

Author:
Stephanie Apstein
Publish date:
Apr 9, 2022

AUGUSTA, Ga. — By the end of the day, Cameron Smith had a good little routine going: Hole out, walk to the next tee, check the leaderboard. Some golfers say they prefer to stay focused on themselves as they charge into contention. Not Smith.

“I believe in just looking at what you need to do,” he said after it was over and he had shot a 68, the lowest round of the day, to secure a spot in Sunday’s final pairing. Two years after finishing second here, he sits at 6 strokes under par, three behind Scottie Scheffler. Sungjae Im is in third at 4 under; no one else is within six shots of the lead.

What Smith needed to do, as it turned out, was just what he did: “Keep making birdies,” he said. “Scottie was making birdies, so just trying to keep up.”

He has been trying to keep up for the last three months. Scheffler has been the hottest golfer on the planet since January. Smith might be the second-hottest. Scheffler won the WM Phoenix Open, tied for second at the Genesis Invitational, won the Arnold Palmer Invitational and won the WGC-Dell Match Play. Smith won the Sentry Tournament of Champions, with the lowest score in PGA Tour history (34 under par), and the Players Championship. Scheffler jumped from No. 12 in the world to No. 1, Smith from No. 21 to No. 6.

“It just means I can get it done when I'm up against the best guys in the world,” Smith said. “It's a good feeling to have. It's earned. It's not given to you.”

He got some help late in the day when Scheffler pulled his tee shot on No. 18 into the azalea bushes. He recovered with a miraculous shot to save bogey but dropped his lead by a stroke from four to three.

Smith, who was off the course by that point, probably didn’t see it. He said after he finished that he did not expect to turn on Golf Channel before returning to the course on Sunday.

“I'm not a big watcher of golf, to be honest,” he said. “I like to watch other sports and really get my mind off what's going to happen tomorrow and really come out here fresh with a fresh mindset and focus on what I need to do when I'm here.”

If Smith has been rattled this week, playing in his sixth Masters but first as one of the favorites, he has kept that to himself. After bookending his Thursday round with double bogeys, he told reporters he had already moved on. “The less you guys bring it up, the quicker I'll forget about it,” he said, laughing. He said he planned to relax by cooking dinner for himself, his girlfriend and a friend every night this week.

He said on Saturday that the hardest part of the day was not driving or putting but keeping his hands warm amid the blustery winds. During rounds, he banters with his caddie, Sam Pinfold, about rugby; after rounds, he banters with the media about his mullet. “I don't know if anyone else wants to rock it, to be honest,” he said on Tuesday. (On Saturday, he said he would not cut his hair to try to psych Scheffler out.)

Pinfold said he was not concerned his player might spend the night overthinking his position. “Nah, not with him,” said Pinfold. “He loves it. Loves a battle. Good frame of mind, very confident.”

Indeed, Smith’s game seems well-suited to Augusta — and he knows it. He leads the field in strokes gained approaching the green, at 3.15, and no one else is even within half a stroke of him. And on Saturday, he improved the putting that had been uncharacteristically shaky early in the week.

“I love this place,” he said on Thursday. “I think my short game has definitely got me out of a lot of bad spots around here, but at the end of the day I think you just need to give yourself opportunities. You need to hit your irons close, and you need to be really good with the putter. I think the chipping maybe helps you out once or twice during the week with a bit of a scruffy round, but I think if you're going to win around here, you've got to hit really quality iron shots.”

If he can do that, he might just look up at the leaderboard on No. 18 on Sunday and find his name at the top.

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