Cameron Smith's Open Championship win and LIV Golf comments turn up heat on golf's power struggle

The Open 2022: How Cameron Smith won The Open at St Andrews

By Iain Carter
BBC golf correspondent

A classic St Andrews Open was the lid on golf's pressure cooker - a thrilling championship gamely trying to deflect attention from an unprecedented power struggle for the running of the game.

But Cameron Smith has turned up the heat, not just with scintillating golf that brought the Australian's first major title but through his reluctance to counter rumours he is about to defect to the LIV Golf Invitational Series.

What a coup it would be for Greg Norman's Saudi Arabian-funded outfit were they to tempt the new world number two, who also won this year's Players Championship, the PGA Tour's flagship tournament.

By merely stating that his "team deal with that sort of stuff", Smith offered no comfort to embattled bosses from golf's status quo. The 28-year-old has become the sport's hottest property and fellow Australian Norman is surely preparing an enormous offer.

Throughout the week of the 150th Open rumours swept the Old Course. Several leading names were being linked with signing up for Norman's lucrative breakaway series.

The Open ends the men's major season; a punctuation mark. The PGA and DP World Tours must fear what is next written in the history of the sport.

The futures of events such as the Ryder Cup feel far from certain and Europe's captain Henrik Stenson is widely rumoured to be among the next to accept Saudi millions.

"Continued speculation," is how the European tour described the rumours, but Stenson has had plenty of opportunities to pledge loyalty to the role he signed up for only last March. He has remained silent when his continent most needed him.

The Open 2022: Best shots of the final round at St Andrews

How different might the landscape of men's professional golf look by the time Smith defends the Claret Jug at Royal Liverpool next year? How distant will seem memories of last week's Old Course epic?

The champion treated us to a blistering performance to hold off Cameron Young and overhaul Rory McIlroy for whom this Open provided another bitterly disappointing result.

Last Sunday was not the day for the Northern Irishman to leave his putter in the fridge. Unable to single putt any of the 18 greens left him vulnerable despite an intelligent game plan efficiently and calmly implemented.

McIlroy went in only two bunkers all week and from one of those he holed out for eagle. He hit every green in regulation on the final day, playing with a calm sense of purpose that suggested he would break his eight-year duck in the majors.

But his failure to convert birdie chances at the 12th and 14th holes proved crucial. Yes, he had seen off Viktor Hovland, who appeared the primary threat at the start of play with the Ryder Cup team-mates locked together, four clear of the field. But he was powerless to do anything about the charging Aussie.

At the 15th McIlroy took a long look at the leaderboard. It confirmed that Smith was ahead by one and the man who had led him by three at the turn then stared forlornly down the 16th fairway to watch the new leader strike his next approach.

It must have been a sickening sound as the galleries applauded the arrival of Smith's ball onto the green. McIlroy could feel the Claret Jug slipping away despite his own raucous support.

St Andrews is not the most atmospheric Open venue. Crowds are restricted to the outside perimeter and the best views come from grandstands, especially around the loop from the seventh to 11th holes.

But a record attendance of 290,000 ensured the 150th edition never lacked a sense of occasion that was commensurate with its historical significance.

Anything but. It was a fantastic spectacle.

And what of the Old Course itself? Fears that it would be overpowered by today's golfing athletes were largely unfounded because fast, firm conditions still presented a stern test.

Twenty under par was a record-equalling winning score, however par is a notional figure and 72 for the Old Course is generous. Depending on the wind the ninth, 10th, 12th and 18th can play as long par three holes.

But with a wind switch they become tricky par four holes, as reflected on the scorecard. Either way the course still demands strategy, power and precision. Smith excelled in all departments, especially with his wedges, to recover from Saturday's potentially ruinous 73.

Where the Old Course failed in a modern setting was its inability to allow 156 competitors round in a timely manner. Failing to complete the first round by 22:00 after starting the day at 06:35 is ridiculous.

But it is an inescapable malaise with two par fives that are reachable in two, drivable par four holes, shared greens and fairways and holes such as the seventh criss-crossing the 11th.

It may be heresy, but in Open terms it is not fit for purpose on the first two days. Rounds in excess of six hours, with the longest holes taking 40 minutes to complete compromise the spectacle.

As several observers noted during interminable Thursday and Friday rounds "LIV must be laughing their heads off." They play only 54 holes with 48 players, no cut and a shotgun start.

It is a different outlook on the game and a pale shadow of the tried and tested methods of determining the hierarchy of men's golf. But LIV is here and it is not going away.

Their third tournament is next week at Donald Trump's place at Bedminster, New Jersey. It will not be a quiet week and new recruits may be on show.

LIV are turning the hob to the max. Their influence remains the big talking point, despite a glorious Open at the home of golf.

The pressure cooker may be about to explode. It is anyone's guess how the resulting mess might return to a sense of order.

Related topics