{"id":314960,"date":"2023-07-10T00:48:25","date_gmt":"2023-07-10T00:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=314960"},"modified":"2023-07-10T01:59:10","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T01:59:10","slug":"smiths-6-5m-payday-on-eve-of-open-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=314960","title":{"rendered":"Smith's $6.5m payday on eve of Open defence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defending British Open<\/a> champion Cameron Smith<\/a> will head into his title defence next weekend fresh off the back of his first win of the season.<\/p>\n

Smith \u2013 who's still ranked No.7 in the world despite only accumulating Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) points in the majors \u2013 pocketed a cool $6 million for winning his first LIV Golf<\/a> event of the year at London's Centurion Club, the host of the inaugural LIV event 12 months ago.<\/p>\n

Fellow Aussie Marc Leishman finished in a tie for second with Patrick Reed.<\/p>\n

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But a bogey from Smith on the last hole meant the All-Australian Ripper GC finished second in the teams standings, a shot behind Reed's 4Aces GC.<\/p>\n

\"Cameron<\/p>\n

The $560,000 prize for the teams event pushed Smith's London payday well past $6.5 million.<\/p>\n

It was at last year's British Open at The Old Course at St Andrews, which Smith won by a shot over Cameron Young and Rory McIlroy<\/a>, rumours of the Aussie's deal with LIV Golf reached fever pitch.<\/p>\n

He will begin his defence of the Claret Jug at Royal Liverpool next Thursday.<\/p>\n

"I wouldn't say it really takes the pressure off," Smith said after his latest win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/livgolf_league\/status\/1678113669413236737<\/a>https:\/\/twitter.com\/EvinPriest\/status\/1678068582318497792<\/a><\/p>\n

"I think it's just nice to be playing good golf. There's nothing worse going into a big golf tournament and you're playing crappy golf."<\/p>\n

Smith came into the final round with a three shot lead over Leishman, while Reed was a further shot back. He carded a three-under 68 to hold off the charge by Leishman (66) and Reed (65) who tied for second just one shot adrift.<\/p>\n

Smith's last win came on home soil at the Australian PGA in November. He missed the second cut at the Australian Open a week later.<\/p>\n

He won his first LIV event last September in Chicago, just nine weeks after winning The Open.<\/p>\n

\"Ripper<\/p>\n

"There's probably a few things to clean up if I want to contend in a couple of weeks' time, but yeah, it's still a big event. It's still got all the biggest names there. It's the Open Championship, so you want to do your best. There's always that pressure.<\/p>\n

"It really hasn't been that long [since I won], I think. In Australia at the end of the year was my last win, but it feels like forever, and especially the way I've been playing the last couple of months, I've been knocking on the door."<\/p>\n

"It's nice to get one out of the way, and hopefully it opens the floodgates a little bit."<\/p>\n

After finishing in a tie for 34th at the Masters, Smith finished in the top-10 at the PGA Championship and the US Open.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defending British Open champion Cameron Smith will head into his title defence next weekend fresh off the back of his first win of the season. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":314962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314960"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=314960"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314965,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314960\/revisions\/314965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/314962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=314960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=314960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=314960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}