Cameron Smith has been on fire this season.
The 28-year-old Aussie has two wins — the Sentry Tournament of Champions and the Players Championship — and a T3 at the Masters, followed by a T13 at the PGA Championship.
This week, he’s alone at the top of the leaderboard at The Memorial Tournament’s halfway point.
But Smith’s impressive ascension may never have been possible were it not for some well-timed birdies early in his career.
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Seven years ago, in 2015, Smith was in the midst of his first season on the PGA Tour. He’d posted two top-15 finishes prior to his first start at the Memorial, where he missed the cut.
He then played the U.S. Open sectional at Brookside Golf and Country Club and the Lakes Golf and Country Club in Columbus, Ohio, where he made four birdies down the stretch to be among the players who punched their ticket to that year’s U.S. Open at Chambers Bay.
That U.S. Open was Smith’s first major championship, and he took full advantage of the opportunity, finishing T4, which earned him entry into the following year’s Masters. He also made enough money as a non-PGA-Tour member to keep his card for the following season.
Fast-forward to this week, and Smith is the third-ranked player in the world, and one of the hottest players in the game. And after he finished his second round at Murifield Village on Friday, he reflected on what that sectional qualifier has meant to his career.
“I think that changed my career getting into the U.S. Open, ended up having a really good finish there,” he said. “And it set up a lot of stuff on the PGA Tour. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster, especially that first couple of years of my pro career. But happy it turned out the way it did.”