About 11,000 kilometres from Dubai, where a portion of golf’s stars are contesting the DP World Tour finale, is the regional town of Murray Downs, on the border of New South Wales and Victoria. Here, rustic bushland and farmland surround Murray Downs Golf & Country Club, a classy resort course with unique, orange-sand bunkers that sits within a stone’s throw of the Murray River. The biggest neighbouring town is Swan Hill, whose population is 21,000. This week, it’s the home of arguably the most intriguing golf tournament in the world. Major champion and Australian Cameron Smith is playing the NSW Open here, a state-level tournament on the PGA Tour of Australasia calendar that has a total purse of $800,000 – or a bit more than fourth place in Dubai.
When Greg Roberts, chief executive of the resort, learned that Smith – who won almost $10 million in prizemoney on LIV Golf alone this year (excluding majors) – was going to play the event, he tried to explain the significance to his daughter with a comparison she’d understand.
“I said to her, ‘It would be like getting Adele to come and do a Sunday session in our beer garden,” Roberts said. “She [said], ‘Oh my god, that’s amazing.’ It just doesn’t get any bigger than this.”
For elite pros like Smith, who won the 2022 Open Championship at St Andrews, it does get bigger. Way bigger. But that doesn’t matter to Smith and his LIV Golf teammate, Lucas Herbert, who’s also playing. They’ve simply been moved by the charming, country-town reminders that meaningful golf isn’t only played when there are millions of dollars on the line.
“There was kid out here [during the Wednesday pro-am] who had come out to watch us play the first four holes and then went to school; it’s amazing,” said Herbert, a three-time DP World Tour winner before LIV.
On Thursday morning, Smith, 31, gave the fans something to cheer when he carded seven birdies and no bogeys during a seven-under-par 64. With preferred lies in play, he matched the course record (posted twice before on a par-72 setup). Sheep bleated in the neighbouring paddocks and several hundred fans walked in the fairways while Smith, Herbert and amateur Declan O’Donovan played the first round. Smith took the clubhouse lead after the morning wave while Herbert’s 66 put him one shot behind.
Just fantastic. Several hundred fans walked in the fairway as major winner Cam Smith shot a 64 to grab the morning lead one day one at the NSW Open, a state tournament held in regional Australia pic.twitter.com/Bj2x0wGI3w
— Evin Priest (@EvinPriest) November 14, 2024
“It’s definitely a different environment [this week], and I suppose different to most weeks we [play] because we’re in cities, staying [downtown], and there’s lots of people around,” Smith said. “It’s a breath of fresh air, I think, just being out here. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
Smith is on a whirlwind tour some have compared to Greg Norman’s return to Australia in the summer of 1986, when he was the reigning Open champion (and 54-hole leader at all four majors that year) and played a series of state opens.
Smith also competed in the Queensland PGA Championship two weeks ago, another state-level tournament with a $160,000 purse, and he finished T-3. After the NSW Open, he will tee up in the country’s two big championships, the Australian PGA and Australian Open. They are the opening two events of the DP World Tour’s 2024-2025 schedule.
So, why do it? Smith’s first answer is, “I did this really to support the local tour,” he told Australian Golf Digest. “I had six or seven weeks off anyway, and there were a bunch of options to play in Europe or Asia, but I just decided to come home and play some local events. It’s been awesome. The past couple of years I’ve played the [Aussie PGA and Open] and I wanted to play more [state events], but just really didn’t have the time. Whereas, now I feel like I’ve got a little bit more time, particularly finishing earlier [LIV Golf’s season ended in October and restarts in February.] I feel like it’s… not our duty to do it, but I feel like it’s just a nice thing to do so why not do it?”
Lucas Herbert hits a shot in the New South Wales Open. [Photo: Courtesy of NSW Open/Scott Campbell]
It’s attracted attention overseas, via Smith and the LIV side he captains, Ripper GC. They won the season-long LIV team championship with the squad of Smith, Herbert, Matt Jones and Marc Leishman.
“I was having a giggle when I [looked at] the Ripper GC Instagram account [posted about] us playing this week. And there’s a couple of comments like, ‘How do we watch this over in America?’” Herbert said. “It’s a small event compared to what we would ordinarily play, but for us, it’s being able to give back at a grassroots level.”
O’Donovan secured his spot in the marquee group by winning the NSW Amateur. The 21-year-old took up golf only six years ago and on Thursday played a pro event with a Smith and Herbert. “I haven’t been [playing] that long and I played with one of the best golfers in Australia’s history,” O’Donovan said of Smith, who won six PGA Tour titles before joining LIV and claiming three individual victories there.
Herbert joined Smith’s Ripper GC team this year after winning three times on the DP World and once on the PGA Tour. “Cam and Lucas are two of the best golfers in the world,” O’Donovan said. “I’ll always remember today for what I learned watching those guys.”
Another reason Smith is playing the state events is to be sharp for the two big events coming up. He’s won the Australian PGA three times and came closest to winning the Australian Open when he lost in a playoff to Jordan Spieth in 2016. Last year, he was the defending PGA champion but shot 78 in the second round and missed the cut. He was in tears at Royal Queensland and vowed never to let it happen again.
“I was just being lazy, not putting in the hard yards [during the offseason], and that was the result,” Smith said. “I really got what I deserved, to be honest. In the grand scheme of things, it was probably a good thing because it hasn’t been the case this year.” This year, apart from a T-6 at the Masters, Smith had three runner-up results on LIV among seven top-10s.
The Australian PGA is next week at Royal Queensland in Smith’s hometown of Brisbane, while the Australian Open will be held November 28-December 1 at co-hosts Kingston Heath and Victoria golf clubs in Melbourne.
“For me, the goal is trying to get that Aussie Open, something I haven’t been able to do yet,” Smith said of an historic national open which counts Spieth, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Rory McIlroy as past champions.
If there’s a higher reward for preparing in these state events, maybe Smith will finally lift the trophy.
