[Photo: Getty images]

Cameron Smith has signed off on his Open Championship preparation in style with a hot final round at LIV Golf Andalucia.

Smith, the 2022 Open champion at St Andrews, carded a final-round of three-under-par 68 at the brutally difficult Valderrama course in southern Spain to finish in a tie for sixth at two-under overall. The Queenslander finished just three shots shy of a sudden-death playoff that local hero and 2017 Masters champion, Sergio Garcia, won over India’s Anirban Lahiri.

Garcia shot 5-under 66 on Sunday at Valderrama to ensure a playoff with Lahiri, and then won with a par on the second playoff hole while Lahiri made double-bogey 6 on the par-4 18th. Earlier, in 54-hole regulation, Garcia had bogeyed his last hole to fall to five-under overall, before Lahiri missed a putt of about 2 feet to win outright.

It was Garcia’s first professional victory in almost four years after winning 11 times on the PGA Tour and 16 on the European circuit.

Smith, who finished T6 at the Masters in April but T63 and T32 said the narrow, tree-lined corridors at Valderrama and the tiny, fast greens, combined with strong winds in round one, were a thorough examination of his driving and ball-striking ahead of the 152nd Open at Royal Troon next week.

Smith averaged 316.9 yards on his tee shots on Sunday at Valderrama, and nine of 14 fairways. For the three rounds, he found 22 of 42 fairways – or 52.38 percent. That’s on the tight driving zones at Valderrama. Troon’s fairways will be wider, but relative to other Open rota courses it is regarded as one of the tougher driving tests. Smith also said he felt comfortable flighting down his trajectory on approach shots in Spain.

“The misses at Valderrama have to be so small,” he told Australian Golf Digest. “You just have to be on all the time, or it was a missed a fairway or missed a green, easily. It was a massive test of ball-striking. It was windy on Friday and I felt comfortable taking some spin off. There’ll be a lot of wind and rain at Troon so taking spin off iron shots will be crucial. I don’t think it’ll be hot in Scotland like it was in Spain and I think the greens will be different [bigger surfaces and slower] at Troon.”

Smith looked comfortable with his driver and admitted to hitting the big club on several holes at Valderrama even if the tee shot called for an iron or fairway metal, because he wanted to test himself under the gun ahead of the Open. “This week was a good step in the right direction with the driver,” Smith said.

Smith’s fellow Australian and Ripper GC teammate Marc Leishman carded a 71 at Valderrama to finish tied 10th at even par, courtesy of his gutsy 66 on day two – a 10-shot turnaround from a 76 on day one. Ripper member Lucas Herbert also signed off well with a 70 improving his total to seven-over and tied 35th, while Matt Jones’ 73 dropped him to 12-over.

For the first time on the LIV circuit, there was also a playoff for a team title in addition to the individual one. On the first playoff hole, Abraham Ancer and David Puig from Fireballs GC, captained by Garcia, defeated Crushers GC’s Bryson DeChambeau and Paul Casey on the first playoff hole for the $3 million team prize.