AUGUSTA, Ga. — All of the attention, understandably, was fixated on Tiger Woods.
The eventual winner of the green jacket in this week’s 86th Masters, however, very well may have been playing one group ahead of Woods in Thursday’s opening round at jam-packed and buzzing Augusta National.
Beware of Cam Smith, the 28-year-old Australian with the scraggly blond mullet and pencil mustache, straight out of the cast of the movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.’’
He’s hot, having just won the Players Championship last month, he’s had success at the Masters (a runner-up in 2020 and a tie for 10th in 2021), he has one of the best short games of any player on the planet, which happens to be very helpful at Augusta National, where creativity and execution win the day, and he’s fearless.
Smith, for a while on Thursday looked like he was about to run away from the field. Of course, no major championship is won on a Thursday, but after a double bogey on his opening hole, Smith went on a heater, playing holes No. 2 through 17 in 8-under par.
He got to the 18th hole at 6-under for the round, but took double bogey to fall back to 4-under and bring a lot of other players — including Woods at 1-under — back into it.
By day’s end, Smith was one shot behind Sungjae Im. That, however, doesn’t make Smith any less dangerous for the next three days.
Smith’s dodgy start obviously didn’t bother him, because he went on to card eight birdies after the double-bogey slap in the face right out of the box.
And you can bet his double on 18 isn’t going to negatively affect him when he stands on the first tee Friday afternoon for his second round.
Smith is a natural-born killer on the golf course. While so many players have a tendency to play defensively at Augusta, because of the trouble that lurks on almost every hole, Smith looks at all of those holes as birdie opportunities.
His fearlessness plays as well at Augusta as his brilliant short game.
And his confidence.
“I just have belief in my game,’’ Smith said. “I know that if I’m playing well, I can make plenty of birdies, and there’s 54 holes left out there and plenty of birdie opportunities. I’m looking forward to it. I love this place. I know it presents plenty of birdies. I just really had to get in a groove.’’
He did, showing more than a glimpse of why he might be the man to beat in the field this week.
“To be honest, those couple of double bogeys really didn’t have too [many] bad shots in them,’’ he said. “It’s not like I was scratching it out of the trees. [Nos.] 1 and 18 [were] obviously really frustrating. I think it’ll motivate me the next few days.
“I feel like I played some really solid golf, and to be 4-under is a little bit disappointing. But, given the condition of the golf course and the condition with the wind and stuff like that, if you had have given me 4-under at the start of the day, I would have taken it.’’
Asked again about the two double bogeys that left blemishes on an otherwise stellar day, Smith said, “I’ve moved on already. The less you guys [reporters] bring it up, the quicker I’ll forget about it. I’m done with it. The stuff in between was really nice.’’
Yes, it was. It was dominant.
The one pressing question about Smith entering the week was whether he might have stunted his momentum having not played since the Players. He withdrew from the Valspar the week after TPC and then opted not to play in the WCG-Dell Match Play, because he had his mother and sister visiting from Australia and Players week took a lot out of him.
Smith conceded to being a little bit “unsure, to be honest’’ about whether the break may have had an adverse effect on him.
“I feel like my game is still really solid,’’ he said. “I kept up with it pretty good. I probably had a week off. As soon as my mom and my sister went, I got back into golf pretty good and just started feeling really good.
“I didn’t lose any confidence.’’
That showed Thursday.
That’s what makes him the man to beat for the final 54 holes this week.
