Smith, 27, rammed home nine birdies in his opening 62, the lowest round of his PGA Tour career.

At nine under par, he leads the tournament at Harbour Town links in South Carolina by a shot.

“I don’t know, everything just came together,” Smith said afterward. “It was a great day on the green. I was hitting my irons really good. I had lots of good looks, and I just took advantage of them.”

Smith carded 31 on both nines and holed out from a bunker at the 17th. Then at 18, he produced what he called “icing on the cake”, a pure iron shot to just more than a metre for his ninth birdie. “I feel like after last week, I feel like chipping around here is almost like a breeze,” he said. “I was so scared almost last week on every chip shot, and I feel like I can be really aggressive around here.”

Smith said he was in a good place in recent times. “I don’t know, I just feel really comfortable. Mentally I feel very free out there. I feel like I can hit the shot that I need to hit and going ahead and trying to execute it. I just feel like every shot I’m hitting, I’m putting 100 percent into it, and on a day like today, it’s really rewarding.”

The world No. 26 recently took over from Adam Scott as the No. 1 Australian player on the men’s tour. Rested up after Augusta, he went home to Jacksonville for a couple of days and found some time to indulge his passion for fishing.

He certainly came back to the course with some fire in the belly.