He’s been dreaming of it for so long, even before his first appearance in the tournament as a baby-faced amateur in 2012 at The Lakes. He has come close; beaten in a playoff by Jordan Spieth in 2016, but he has never lifted the Stonehaven Cup.

Despite misgivings about the softness of the courses this week – he has long been an advocate for preparing hard and fast green complexes in the Melbourne sandbelt – he is still hellbent on adding his national Open to a building list of victories this week.

He calls the Australian Open “the one I’ve wanted for so long”, and he means it.

“If I thought about tournaments that I haven’t won, probably this one and the Masters are the top two,” said Smith. “Hopefully I can knock them both off shortly. That would be the dream.”

Smith played in the pro-am today at Kingston Heath alongside ISPS HANDA ambassador Scott Morrison and made plenty of birdies. He’s in a good space and “pretty pumped” that his beloved Brisbane Broncos have signed superstar Ben Hunt for 2025.

His first duty in the media centre was to judge a lookalike competition, which left him a little bemused. “It’s not really a great look. I think my wife and my Mum are probably the only two who think it’s good, but it’s funny.”

He is in the fourth week of his home stretch which has netted near-misses in the Queensland PGA, the NSW Open and last week’s BMW Australian PGA Championship, runner-up to Elvis Smylie at Royal Queensland and also at Murray Downs behind Lucas Herbert.

Asked what had been missing in the chase for a win, he put it simply: “Probably just not holing the putts that I needed to hole. I mean you have to putt good, no matter what tour you’re playing on to win golf tournaments. We all witnessed how good Elvis putted that last day, and it was awesome to watch. That’s what you need to win golf tournaments and that’s probably it to be honest. Everything’s been solid, it just hasn’t glued for four days in a row yet.”

Marc Leishman has spoken about the heavy expectation on the top Australian players when they come home to domestic tournaments, which is also in Smith’s mind.

“This one is quite special,” he said. “I’ve been wary about that coming into the last couple of years. As time goes on, you’re almost wasting one more chance. It’s something you have to be careful of for sure, but sometimes the added pressure and motivation is a really good thing. For myself, I’ve probably worked harder than I’ve ever worked the last six weeks because of this, and it’s put my game in a really good spot.”

Given that Melbourne has had severe storms and heavy rain in two of the past three days – the afternoon pro-am players were sent scurrying from the course and Minjee Lee and Hannah Green who flew in today had to leave without even practicing – Smith is expecting a different type of golf this week.

Unless the wind gets up, scores are likely to be low. “It’s going to play more like an American golf course,” he said. “You can land it at the pin and kind of fire away, which is again, not the reason we love golf down here.”

PHOTO: Cameron Smith entertains during the pro-am at Kingston Heath today. Image: Daniel Pockett