[Photo: Ross Flannigan/Australian Golf Digest]

Adam Scott and Cameron Smith played a practice on a balmy Tuesday evening at Royal Troon. The two Queenslanders might be 14 years apart in age, but they’re both chasing the same thing: major championship win No.2. And both hope it comes at this week’s 152nd Open Championship.

Fresh off a second place at last week’s Scottish Open, Scott, 44, is playing his 24th consecutive Open going back to his debut in 2000 at St Andrews. Smith didn’t know Scott’s streak was 24 and was blown away by the longevity. “Mate, he’s so good,” Smith told Australian Golf Digest Tuesday at Troon. “It shows the type of person he is; really hard working and talented to get into the fields for such a long time. It’s a pretty crazy stat when you think about it.”

Starting in 2012, Scott had a flurry of outstanding results for four Opens without getting the job done. He squandered a four-shot lead with four to play at Lytham in 2012, prior to winning the following year’s Masters for his first major title. Once back at the Open in 2013, he finished T3, then T5 in 2014, and T10 at St Andrews in 2015. In three of those four Opens, he held at least a share of the lead on the Sunday back nine.

But in the past decade, several waves of superstars have emerged in pro golf including Scott’s good mate, Smith. The mullet-wearing Brisbane native claimed his first major at the 150th Open at St Andrews in 2022. It was his sixth PGA Tour win before joining LIV Golf. “The competition’s getting harder and young guys like Cam and others are better at a younger age,” Scott told Australian Golf Digest after his practice round, which included Victorian Jasper Stubbs.

On Tuesday at Troon, Scott and Smith pair hardly spoke about majors and instead caught up as friends now that Smith plays on LIV and sees his boyhood idol, Scott, less often. In addition to 2015 PGA champion, Jason Day, who was T2 at last year’s Open at Royal Liverpool, Scott and Smith are the Australian men chasing a validating second major.

Scott [left], Stubbs and Smith [right] on Tuesday. Photo: Ross Flannigan/Australian Golf Digest

“You never know how your career is going to script out,” Scott said. “If you asked me 10 years ago, after I won the Masters, I was feeling more like [six-time major winner] Phil Mickelson and that I’d sneak a few more majors quickly.”

Smith, Scott and Day are each attempting to become the seventh Australian to win multiple major championships after Karrie Webb (7), Peter Thomson (5), Jan Stephenson (3), as well as David Graham, Greg Norman and Minjee Lee (all 2).

Scott was T15 at St Andrews in 2022, while Smith, since winning the Open, has finished fourth at the US Open, T9 at the PGA Championship (2023) and T6 at the Masters this year. LIV golf’s lighter schedules and 54-hole tournaments have not appeared to affect his performances in the majors. Nor has it affected his desire for major No.2.

“I can’t say I haven’t tried this year; I think I did a really good job of preparing for the Masters which I didn’t do a good job of last year,” Smith said. “I didn’t drive the ball the best in the last couple majors this year, but the driver seems to be coming around. I think that desire is there for sure, I wouldn’t say the candle isn’t lit. Going out and doing it is a different story.”

In fact, Smith, who finished T6 at the brutal Valderrama course in Spain last week, is desperate to be a multiple major champion. “Absolutely; the list of major winners is pretty good but the list of two-time major winners is even better,” Smith said. “It’s a list I want to be part of and which not too many Aussies are on. I think I’d be a little disappointed if I didn’t get another one, two or even three in my career.”

For Scott, it’s about iron play and combining four good rounds. He hadn’t done either lately until finishing second to Bob MacIntyre by one shot last week at Scotland’s Renaissance Club. Scott hadn’t registered a top 10 on any tour since February at the PGA Tour’s Phoenix Open.

“It’s the same stuff I’ve been saying for the last year or so; I’m in good health, I keep up and I’m relevant with most of the young players as far as distance and putting goes,” Scott said. “But putting it all together has been the hardest thing.”

[Photo: Ross Flannigan/Australian Golf Digest]

The 152nd Open is the most confidence Scott has brought to the links major since before Covid-19, when he won a 14th PGA Tour title at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera in February 2020. “It was nice to play great last week and come into a major feeling good about all parts of my game majors are the toughest tests,” Scott said.

Smith, Scott and Day are among six Australians at the Open this week. The Australian contingent also includes Min Woo Lee, final qualifier Elvis Smylie and Stubbs, who won the Asia Pacific Amateur at Royal Melbourne last year.

AUSSIE TEE TIMES IN AEST

4.19 Min Woo Lee (Aus), Ryo Hisatsune (Jpn), Abraham Ancer (Mex)

4.30 Nicolai Hojgaard (Den), Adam Scott (Aus), Keita Nakajima (Jpn)

4.41 Francesco Molinari (Ita), Justin Rose (Eng), Jasper Stubbs (Aus)

8.04 Thriston Lawrence (Rsa), Daniel Bradbury (Eng), Elvis Smylie (Aus)

10.26 Jason Day (Aus), Byeong Hun An (Kor), Rickie Fowler

11.59 Shane Lowry (Irl), Cameron Smith (Aus), Matt Fitzpatrick (Eng)

11.37 Tiger Woods, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay

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