Cam Smith lost the PGA Championship. But it didn’t look like it up close

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Cam Smith had been here before. But he hadn’t been here in a while.

With the Philadelphia sun beating down on Aronimink’s 18th green on Sunday, Smith surveyed the terraced putting surface, which was getting crispier by the minute. When the Australian started his final round at the PGA Championship, he had a number in his head. He had seen Justin Thomas go out and post 5 under and noticed the jam-packed leaderboard behind him struggling to score as the course firmed up. He wouldn’t get to his target, 6 under, but he had 14 feet between him and a closing birdie to match Thomas and tie the clubhouse lead. Fourteen feet for a slim chance to stay alive for major No. 2.

“I wanted to make that putt,” Smith said.

Smith, who rode a hot putter all Sunday at Aronimink, made one more smooth stroke and sent the ball toward the hole. It was tracking but bobbled right at the last second for a closing par and a 2-under 68 to get into the house at 4 under, one shot shy of Thomas. Hours later, it would be five shots behind the eventual winner, Aaron Rai, leaving Smith with a T7 finish.

But in that moment, what mattered was that Cam Smith was close to where he wanted to be. As close as he has been in quite some time.

In 2022, the Australian ascended to the top of the golf world. He won the Players and then ran down Rory McIlroy on Sunday at the Open to triumph at St. Andrews. He joined LIV Golf later that summer and remained one of the best players in the world until the middle of 2024. Starting with the 2024 PGA at Valhalla, Smith missed six of eight major cuts and plummeted out of sight as a legitimate major championship threat.

A missed cut at the Masters in April left him devastated. He heard all the noise about joining LIV and losing his competitive drive. It was nonsense. He didn’t lose his edge; his game had just slipped. He had been grinding to find it and be his old self. But sometimes golf doesn’t always give you what you think you deserve.

“You don’t work hard to play crap, and it’s frustrating, and the last couple of years have been frustrating,” Smith said on Sunday at Aronimink. “I feel like I’ve been putting in the work and not really getting anything out of it.”

This week at Aronimink, Cam Smith finally reemerged. The work finally paid dividends.

Smith started Sunday’s final round four shots back of 54-hole leader Alex Smalley but firmly in the thick of this major championship. He made birdies at Nos. 3, 5 and 9 to get to within one of the lead and send a jolt through the Philadelphia crowd. He was firmly back in the cauldron, a place where he had yearned to get back to. It’s where he feels comfortable, or at least did.

But when you haven’t been under the major championship gun in a while, everything feels new again for some time. Smith welcomed the nerves and the pressure. When you’ve been searching for the road back to where you want to be, finally knowing you’re on the right path can fill the soul, even if you haven’t yet arrived at your destination.

“Thanks for bringing that up. I haven’t been there in a little while. You’re right,” Smith said, laughing. “It was good. I love that stuff. That’s why we compete. We compete to win, and it was nice to get the heart rate up and, you know, feel your hands and your legs get a little bit jelly. It was cool.”

Sunday at Aronimink was vintage Cam Smith. He drove it all over the Donald Ross golden-age gem, winding up in several places major championship contenders don’t plan to be on Sunday afternoon. But every time it looked like he was about to exit the proceedings, Smith’s weapons — his short game and his putter — bailed him out.

He made momentum-saving par putts of length at 10, 11, 12 and 15. Smith high-fived fans as he walked between tees and shared laughs with his caddie as they prepared for every tee shot. Major championship pressure can do all sorts of things to all sorts of golfers, no matter their resume. But on Sunday, as the PGA Championship was being decided, Cam Smith looked at home. Finally back where he was supposed to be.

“I feel like I’ve thrived in major championships my whole career,” Smith said. “I feel like I’ve been able to play my best golf in major championships, and that kind of fell off. I don’t think it was from a lack of hard work. I just think you lose a little bit of confidence in your swing and maybe in your brain, and it can all happen so quickly. I’m proud of how I hung in there today, and I’m proud of how I showed up this week, with a new thought and a new swing.”

That new thought and new swing came when Smith made the “devastating” decision to fire his longtime swing coach, Grant Field, with whom he had worked since he was nine years old, and hire Claude Harmon. It’s a decision that is still weighing on Smith, but this week at Aronimink was proof that he is finally on the path back to becoming Cam Smith.

Cam Smith felt it. Everyone else saw it on Sunday.

When that final birdie attempt missed, and Smith’s PGA Championship fate was sealed, he took off his hat and hugged his caddie. He tossed a ball to a young fan as he walked to scoring. This had been a long time coming. Cam Smith walked through a lot of darkness to bask in the Philadelphia sun on a major Sunday at Aronimink, win or lose.

“I’ve had so many bad weeks or poor weeks over the last few years that you’re kind of just waiting for it all to blow up,” Smith told GOLF near the Aronimink clubhouse. “It was nice for it to just kind of progress and keep going and not do that.

“I’m happy with how I hung in there, and I believe that I’m doing the right things.”

As Sunday at Aronimink wound down, major champions exited the course and left empty-handed, ruing a missed opportunity to add to their resumes. But Cam Smith felt the opposite. He left Philadelphia with the thing he had been chasing — finally feeling like Cam Smith again.