Feeling good after his driver passed Valderrama’s brutal test, Cameron Smith has arrived at Royal Troon determined to bag a second career major at the 152nd Open Championship.

Smith, the 2022 Open winner at St Andrews, lobbed into Ayrshire on Sunday night and was headed to Troon on Monday to reacquaint himself with the links he last played as an amateur 12 years ago at the 2012 British Amateur. He shot 70, 79 that year to head home early.

This time, Smith is teeing up at Troon buoyed by a solid driving performance at the narrow, tree-lined Valderrama course in Spain where he finished T6 at LIV Golf Andalucia. Impressively, Smith averaged 316.9 yards on his tee shots on Sunday’s final round at Valderrama. For all three rounds, he found 22 of 42 fairways – or 52.38 percent. It was only three fairways less than the winner, Sergio Garcia.

“I had been feeling uncomfortable with the driver but Valderrama was a good test,” Smith told Australian Golf Digest. “I’ve been working hard on it at home in Florida. I’ve been forcing myself to hit driver a lot while playing when maybe I shouldn’t, because I wanted to test it repeatedly. Whenever I had a 50/50 tee shot at Valderrama [where a shorter club was an option], I hit driver. It was a good step in the right direction. This [Troon] is probably one of the toughest Open tests because it’s penal off the tee but I’m feeling good. If I drive it here at Troon like I did at Valderrama, I think I think I’ll have a good shot [at winning].”

Smith is chasing a second major to add to his 150th Open triumph at the Old Course two years ago. Recently, he finished T63 and T32 at the PGA and US Open, respectively.

The 30-year-old credited Valderrama’s tight driving zones, wind, sloped fairways, thick rough and tiny greens for sharpening his mental game ahead of the Open.

“I think Valderrama was a really good patience week,” he said. “You just had to really be patient and in majors, as we all know, you have to play patient golf. You have to wait for the course to come to you … I think I think I did a really good job of that in Spain. Because when you’re not feeling great with your game, I think there is a tendency to try and push yourself or maybe go for again or do some silly stuff. So I did a really good job with that last week and I’m looking forward to the Open this week.”

Smith is one of six Australians at the Open this week, including last week’s runner up at the Scottish Open by one shot, Adam Scott, who is playing his 24th consecutive Open. The rest of the Australian contingent includes world No.30 Jason Day, Australia’s highest-ranked male player, as well as Min Woo Lee, final qualifier Elvis Smylie and amateur Jasper Stubbs.

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