Cameron Smith is the 2022 Players Champion
The Australian flag is flying over the clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass, Ponte Vedra, Florida. Cameron Smith is the 2022 Players Champion, winning the richest event on the PGA tour. What a putting performance by the young Aussie! An amazing final round saw Cam make plenty of birdies (10), shooting 66. He bogied the last hole and still hung on to claim victory over Anirban Lahiri. This was no walk in the park, however. Winning this event on this treacherous course is no small achievement. This is his 5th victory on the PGA tour.
Richest Ever Players Championship Won By Cam Smith
Cameron Smith is 28 years old. He still has the mullet and wispy facial hair. Wearing his traditional Sunday dusty pink coloured shirt with white slacks he cut a fine figure. Perhaps, the dusty pink is a reminder of back home in Queensland? Cam had his mum and sister on course, after not seeing his mother for more than 2 years due to the Covid pandemic. He lives near the course and calls Jacksonville home these days. Cameron Smith becomes the 5th Aussie to win the unofficial 5th major. Smith climbs to second on the FedEx ladder and cements his position as a Top 10 player on the world ratings. Cameron Smith is the 2022 Players Champion, and he wins US $3.6 million in prize money for this victory.
Sublime Putting Compensates Poor Driving
The driver was not behaving for Cam on the back nine, but he got out of jail and up and down repeatedly. Smith made clutch par putts to maintain his lead in the face of a chasing pack of world class golfers. Paul Casey, who was playing with Cam, hung in there and finished third. Keegan Bradley was playing his heart out until the final putt dropped but fell a few shots short. Lahiri had the chance to tie the tournament, when Smith put his recovery shot from the pine straw on 18 into the water. However, Anirban was unable to make birdie after a fine tee shot set him up with that opportunity.
Cameron Smith shared with the media that the 18th hole does not suit his eye because he likes to fade the ball and the hole demands a draw. Smith is a short game wizard and his scrambling skills got him home in the biggest win of his burgeoning career. Despite dunking his ball in the water on the last his short pitch to the green zeroed in on the flag to snuggle within a few feet for bogie. His bogie was enough, like Adam Scott in 2004, to raise the golden man trophy. GolfDom salutes this remarkable young Australian golfer as a worthy Players Champion.
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