Cameron Smith will make his first professional title defence when he is one of eight Australasians to be part of the innovative Zurich Classic teams event in Louisiana this week.

Smith and partner Jonas Blixt emerged victorious in a tense four-hole play-off at the inaugural event last year which ended on the Monday when the result couldn’t be decided before darkness fell.

Smith was famously speechless in the aftermath of the achievement which spring boarded him to a brilliant season, one that ended with another emotional victory at the Australian PGA Championship on the Gold Coast.

The Queenslander will again pair with Blixt for a tournament that has attracted a strong field after its thrilling debut in 2017.

Among the world top-20 ranked players teeing up is Jason Day who has chosen young gun Ryan Ruffels as his partner.

They are one of two all-Australian pairings, Greg Chalmers and Cameron Percy also joining forces.

Matt Jones will play alongside American Chad Campbell while Aaron Baddeley will team with Scott Stallings and New Zealand’s Danny Lee has chosen Sweden’s David Lingmerth as his partner.

The format sees 80 two-man teams play two rounds of foursomes (Friday and Sunday) and two rounds of four-ball to decide the winner.

The team selections are based on the World Rankings, the higher ranked player able to partner with any eligible professional golfer of his choosing.

PGA TOUR membership is not a pre-requisite for selection, as in the case of Ryan Ruffels who presently plays the PGA Tour Latino America.

As the 19-year-old said earlier in the week, he is looking forward to stepping up to golf’s premiere league.

“When you play on the PGA TOUR, there are more media, there are more people, and everything you do is sort of watched,” he said.

The stakes are high for Ruffels this week despite the teams event not counting towards the Official World Golf Ranking.

Victory comes with all the trappings of winning a regular TOUR event including a two-year exemption and starts at both THE PLAYERS and PGA Championship.

Ruffels is no stranger to the vagaries of the format having paired with Kyle Stanley last year and leading after the first round only to slide down the standings Saturday as both players struggled on the greens.

“We played great other than the third round,” he said.

The nature of the team format doesn’t favour any particular style of play and last year’s leaderboard featured an eclectic mix of styles.

Individual form counts for far less in this environment and while several of the Australasians have been at less than their best in recent weeks that will count for little in Louisiana.

However, Lingmerth and Lee also played together last year and finished just outside the top-10 while Cameron Percy, playing with Grayson Murray, was T11 so both have some experience with the format.

Matt Jones played alongside Ricky Barnes in 2017 and the pair finished T22 while Aaron Baddeley and Greg Chalmers are playing the team format for the first time.