Cameron Smith

Smith was already one of the stars of the 2022 season before he took his career to new heights with a sensational victory in The 150th Open at St Andrews.

A round of 64 had lifted the Australian to the top of the leaderboard at the halfway stage and, after slipping back with a 73 on Saturday, he produced another eight-under-par round on Sunday to pip Cameron Young and Rory McIlroy to the Claret Jug. Smith's back nine was truly stunning as he carded five birdies in a row from the 10th and another on the 18th to come home in 30 for a record-equalling Open aggregate of 20-under.

He entered the world’s top 10 for the first time by winning the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii in January, beating Jon Rahm by one with a 34-under-par total that was a PGA Tour 72-hole record, then captured the $3.6million first prize at March’s Players Championship, where his closing 66 included 10 birdies.

Tied for fourth on his first-ever major appearance at the 2015 U.S. Open, an event for which he came through a qualifying tournament, while at the 2020 Masters he finished joint runner-up with Sungjae Im, five strokes behind Dustin Johnson.

In the process Smith became the first player to shoot four rounds in the 60s at Augusta National. He was also third at the Masters this April after making it into the final group on Sunday.

He had previously qualified for a Presidents Cup debut on home turf in December 2019 and was the winner of the Australian PGA title in 2017 and 2018, the second of those seeing him beat Marc Leishman by two a week after they were joint runners-up behind Belgium in the ISPS Handa World Cup.

Smith earned his Open debut in 2017 through the Australian Open, where he lost a play-off to Jordan Spieth. In January 2020 had his first solo PGA Tour victory, taking the Sony Open in Hawaii after a play-off against Brendan Steele.