If Rory McIlroy was the lion taking control of St. Andrews and bending the field to his will on Saturday into Sunday a year ago, then Cameron Smith was the fox slinking in the shadows. Perhaps not always one move ahead but never far from its target and -- at the end of a long, emotional several days at the home of golf -- the one sipping from the silver as the lion left to lick his wounds.
So it was at the 2022 Open Championship. So it is as Smith enters the 2023 Open Championship.
Smith is a chameleon of sorts. Part of this is because the game doesn't leap off the page like it does with Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler or Viktor Hovland. Those guys slug. Smith slyly slithers. He is often so laid back you can forget about him as a top contender at all.
The persona belies the competitiveness that lies beneath. Because underneath the mullet and the smile and the putting stroke made of butter is somebody who is as fierce as he is nasty. Smith is completely unafraid of the biggest moments he encounters.
The other reason he remains camouflaged, though, is because we just do not see him as much anymore. Smith plays LIV Golf almost exclusively now, siloed away from most of the best players in the world. Even when we have seen him, the strong performances have perfectly shrouded his conspicuousness. Late charges at both the PGA Championship and U.S. Open resulted in top-10 finishes, but he was never truly in the mix in either tournament.
Still, the golf has been quite good of late. In addition to those top 10s at two of the first three majors, he has finished in the top 10 in six straight LIV events and took the top spot at LIV London a few weeks ago. Opens suit his wily game perfectly, and some of the awkward tee shots at Royal Liverpool are reminiscent of the driving test at TPC Sawgrass where Smith won a year and a half ago.
The key at Hoylake will likely be whether he drives it well enough to keep up with the top dogs. If he does, he'll surely make a push to become the first Open champion to repeat since Padraig Harrington in 2007-08.
"I think I'm actually a better golfer now than what I was last year," said Smith. "I think the stuff that I had to clean up is progressing. It's still a little bit of a work in progress. I said this morning to someone that kind of my 5-iron and up has always been a bit of a struggle for me, and that's an area of the game that we've worked probably harder than we have on in the past.
"I feel like it's right there. It just all has to come together. I think the first round I had at Centurion a couple of weeks ago was the first time where I felt like it had all come together, and then the driver, again, wasn't my best friend on the weekend there. But I managed to kind of scramble out a good week, so, yeah, it's there. It just hasn't been there for all four rounds. But it feels really close."
Perhaps part of the reason it feels as if Smith is cunning is because he does not get wrapped up in the narratives and histrionics that major weeks offer. It's easy to be swept away by the PGA Tour-LIV storylines, Smith vying for a repeat, McIlroy's attempt to exact his revenge on this tournament and this man, Koepka's bid for a sixth trophy or any manner of other tale you want to tell yourself this week. But Smith refuses to do it, and he does a great job not putting too much upon his shoulders because he knows that's not how he thrives.
In other words, Smith stays in his lane.
"I'm determined to try my best every week and just try and be a better golfer than I was last week," he said. "I never really expect too much of myself. The things I expect are doing everything 100%, ticking all the boxes early in the week, making sure I'm prepared and then just go out there and give it my all. That's all I can really do.
"I think I've done that fantastic this year and especially last year. It was such a good year last year, you almost expect to win. I think that's not really a good way to look at golf. Just expect to do all the things that you're meant to do 100% and then go out there and give it a crack, and if you win, you win."
Just like last year when the 150th Open Championship turned back toward town at St. Andrews in the final round, Smith is lurking in the background. He's again ready to swipe away Claret Jug from whomever believes they have it in their grasp. Perhaps that's somebody other than the lion of last year's Open ... or it might be the same prey as before.
For last year's lion is also this year's lion. While McIlroy is not the defending champion of the tournament, he is the defending champion on this course, where he won The Open back in 2014 as a 25 year old. Rory is a 21/4 favorite, and just as he was with nine holes left at St. Andrews, he enters Royal Liverpool as undoubtedly the man to beat. The fox usurped him last year; will he do so again?
That is all metaphorical right now, of course, as McIlroy and Smith and the other 154 golfers in the field enter at even par with the tournament yet to start. It could become literal, though, as there are not too many golfers playing better than the two who gave us an all-time show 12 months ago at the Old Course.
"I guess that would be a good story for you guys to write about for sure," said Smith. "Like I've said, there's plenty of guys here that given their week can be right up there on Sunday afternoon. I'm sure Rory will be one of them. He's played great golf the last few months here. It looked like he finally got one on and it may have opened the floodgates for him for sure. But yeah, it would be a cool story for sure."
