Cameron Smith has held on to win a third Australian PGA Championship, lifting the Joe Kirkwood Cup at Royal Queensland after bad weather twice suspended play on Sunday.
Smith closed out his third Australian PGA win in style. The 2017 and 2018 champion fended off leaderboard charges from several contenders to secure a three-shot victory at the DP World Tour-sanctioned event. Three birdies in his final seven holes gave Smith a 68 and a 14-under par total. Japan Tour regular Ryo Hisatsune and Australia’s Jason Scrivener tied second at 11-under. Min Woo Lee and england’s John Parry were tied fourth at nine under.
Smith began the day with a three-shot 54-hole lead and despite shooting three under the card he held on to that margin – just.
At times it was looking shaky. At the par-3 11th, after the first weather delay, Smith made his only bogey of the day but he dropped to a share of the lead. Then came the turning point; moments after Scrivener birdied the 13th, Smith hooked his tee shot into the trees on the driveable par 4 12th. But he pulled off a miraculous flop shot over a tree to close range for birdie. He made it and took the outright lead once again.
More birdies at 13 and 16 kept Scrivener and Hisatsune at bay, and a clutch par save from the bunker at the 18th sealed the seal for Smith’s fifth victory of the year.
It caps off an incredible breakthrough season for the 29-year-old. Smith won the PGA Tour’s Sentry Tournament of Champions, Players Championship, and the 150th Open at St Andrews before leaving in August to join LIV Golf. Once there, he won its Chicago stop in September.
Upon Smith’s return to 72-hole strokeplay at this week’s Australian PGA (LIV’s format has no cut at its 54-hole events) Smith proved he’s still one of the world’s best.
“I really didn’t think I had it in me this week, to be honest,” Smith said on the 18th green. “Start of the week was a little bit scratchy but the game just got better and better as the week went on, other than a few holes (around the turn) today.”
