[Photos: Getty images]

In two weeks, Cameron Smith will tee up at the Queensland PGA Championship, a $A250,000 event at Nudgee Golf Club just north of Brisbane. Only a few weeks later the former world No.2 will contest the NSW Open at Murray Downs and although its prize purse was boosted to a record $A800,000 it pales in comparison to the multi-millions Smith and his LIV Golf colleagues regularly play for.

Smith is preparing for a four-tournament Australian schedule that also includes the Australian Open and PGA. Smith’s teammate, Lucas Herbert, will join him in the NSW Open on the Murray River, as well as the Australian Open and PGA. Herbert will also tee up in the Webex Players event at Cobram Barooga.

The novelty of Smith –who won the 150th Open at St Andrews in 2022 – playing two state-level tournaments is not lost on Australian current and former pros. Take Jake Higginbottom, for example. He’s a long-time friend of Smith’s from their junior, amateur and pro golf days, although he recently stopped competing to move into real estate. He said Smith’s Aussie schedule was rare and exciting.

“He’s a major champion, won [six] of times on the PGA Tour and [three times on] LIV Golf, so for him to come back and play the Queensland PGA is phenomenal,” Higginbottom, the 2012 New Zealand Open champion, said.

Jake Higginbottom

Higginbottom said the buzz this summer would not be too dissimilar to the halcyon days of the mid-1980s when Greg Norman, ranked world No.1, teed up in the 1986 editions of the NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australian opens in a blockbuster Australian calendar. That was months after Norman won the Open Championship at Turnberry in Scotland.

“You’re not going to see too many other [players] of [Smith’s] stature do that; when I was playing you’d get John Senden or Robert Allenby but a major champion in the peak of their career coming out and playing state opens in Australia, I’ve never seen it,” Higginbottom said. “I guess Greg Norman back in the day when he came out and played in Australia [was similar].

“Cam has said he wants to push Australian golf further along and make more people take notice of it. I take my hat off to him. I think what Australian golf needs.”

Smith’s participation also has young rookie pros such as Phoenix Campbell champing at the bit. Campbell will turn pro imminently having played last week’s Japan Open as the finale to his amateur career.

He won last year’s Queensland PGA, while still an amateur, and he will be the defending champion when round one gets underway on Thursday, October 31. Campbell said Smith’s participation was a boost for the event and hoped for a tee with Smith – the captain of LIV Golf’s recently-crowned teams champions, Ripper GC.

“I was pretty stoked when I saw [Smith announcement] news come through; I’m hoping that we can get a pairing sometime in the week,” Campbell said. “I haven’t really played with many high-profile players, so it’d be awesome to just just walk fairways and pick his brains a little bit. I think that’d be really cool experience. Obviously, we’ll see how we go, and hopefully come Sunday [at Nudgee GC], we’ll be playing together.”

Phoenix Campbell