The fall Tour’s breakout stars
By Bill Felber
5. Cameron Smith
Smith is a 28-year-old Australian who’s certainly shown flashes of brilliance. He played well enough to make the 2019 Presidents Cup team, and tied for second at the November 2020 Masters. He’s top 25 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
It would, then, surprise few if Smith emerged as a front-rank Major threat in 2022. His fall season showing lends credence to that possibility.
Smith teed it up only three times on the U.S. Tour this fall: at the CJ Cup, the Houston and the RSM. The results were uniformly smooth: ties for ninth, 15th and fourth. That translated to a -1.01 average standard deviation.
In fact the only knock on Smith’s fall resume, aside from the lack of an outright win, was the light workload.
At 68.933, he ranks third in scoring average for the fall Tour. That’s right in line with his season-long 2020-21 numbers.
Driving has never been a Smith strength. He finished 171st in Strokes Gained Off The Tee during the 2020-21 season, and hasn’t started 2021-22 much better. But his iron play…that’s a different story.
Through the fall tour, Smith ranks seventh in Strokes Gained Approaching the Green at +0.99. That’s a seven-tenths of a stroke improvement over last season, nearly nine-tenths over 2019-20 and any prior season.
In a Major, you win by precision work approaching the greens. If his fall play is any indication, Cameron Smith may be improving in that category as much as any player.