Cameron Smith surges past Rory McIlroy to win the 150th British Open at St. Andrews

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Up ahead surged the quiet man. The quiet man would mar this merriment. From a position one twosome away, thus visible at times to the throngs following Rory McIlroy loudly and even tipsily, the quiet man would win the 150th British Open and give the budding bedlam a great big sigh.

The fans chanting and singing McIlroy’s name as he led the board around Nos. 9 and 10 Sunday, the ones charging through the ropes to the fairways behind McIlroy in premature anarchy on Nos. 11 and 12, began to notice the bummer on phones and electronic leader boards. Cameron Smith, the quiet Australian with a loud mullet and a No. 6 world ranking and top-three showings in two of the past three Masters, birdied No. 10.

Then Smith birdied No. 11.

Then Smith birdied No. 12.

Then Smith birdied No. 13.

Then Smith birdied No. 14 – and the heart of this most celebrated Open began to break.

“They were a lot louder in the beginning compared to the end – that’s for sure,” said Viktor Hovland, McIlroy’s playing partner, who found them still “pretty rowdy.”

Call it downsized rowdiness, then, as this exalted event at the birthplace of golf neared its end: Smith had gone from three shots behind McIlroy at 14 under par to one shot ahead at 19 under, McIlroy having birdied No. 10 to reach 18 under. Smith would save par on No. 17 by putting from 66 yards up the ridge, then using his otherworldly stroke to send a 10-foot beauty with flawless speed to the middle of the cup. He would birdie No. 18 easily to get to 20 under, make McIlroy frown from back on the tee, complete a 64 of eight birdies and 10 pars, beat McIlroy’s clean 70 of two birdies and 16 pars, and become the fifth Australian to win the British Open – and the first since Greg Norman in 1993.

And as New Yorker Cameron Young, Smith’s playing partner, eagled No. 18 to slide into second between the two at 19 under, Smith would extend McIlroy’s major drought to 30 since the 2014 PGA Championship and give the four-time major winner something he had avoided in the other 29: the pain of seeing a bygone Sunday lead. “Yeah, I’ll rue a few missed putts today that slid by,” McIlroy said, just as he added, “That’s a worthy winner out on the 18th green (receiving the claret jug) right now.”

“I sometimes think,” Smith said, “that being behind on certain golf courses and certain situations is maybe a good thing. I think it’s very easy to get defensive out there and keep hitting it to 60, 70 feet, and you can make pars all day, but you’re not going to make birdies. Yeah, I think it was a good thing definitely that I was behind.”

An exuberant week had gone to a player who calls his own game boring but whose major breakthrough on his 25th major try surprises no one with a dimpled brain. Smith has won thrice this year – in Maui, at the vaunted Players Championship near his home near Jacksonville, Fla., and here. He belongs at 28 to a generation noted for bold readiness at tender ages. Here’s the first calendar year with four major winners in their 20s: Smith joins Masters winner Scottie Scheffler, 25 (26 by now); PGA Championship winner Justin Thomas, 29; and U.S. Open winner Matt Fitzpatrick, 27.

“I knew it wasn’t going to be too long before I got one of these,” Smith said.

It just didn’t seem to be this one at breakfast time Sunday, when the big leader boards around the grand hotels and clubhouse near Nos. 1 and 18 showed McIlroy and Hovland well atop at 16 under, with the two Camerons, Smith and Young, next at 12 under. No player had come from that far back to win the Open since Phil Mickelson from five back in 2013, and to most of the frenzied galleries, Smith would be just one of the two Camerons.

Yet as the hopes and roars got going, so did a trend: McIlroy kept hitting greens but not near holes. His birdie tries all came from between 13 and 61 feet, with only five of them inside 20. His 61-foot try on No. 13 stopped right at the door just before it would have unleashed untold din. He lost the lead despite never really losing his way.

“I felt like I didn’t do much wrong today, but I didn’t do much right, either,” he said. “It’s just one of those days when I played a really controlled round of golf.” He wished he had hit it closer more often and said his putter “went a little cold” but then not all that cold. He started a lot of putts “on the edge or just outside thinking it was going to move” and, “More times than not, they just sort of stayed there.”

His round just sort of stayed there. He parred the last eight holes.

His daydream made from his view from the hotel at the grand leader board, the idea of his name still atop by dawn Monday, remained a daydream.

If it seemed an avalanche of pressure with his major drought and this 150th Open and how a win would have made it all poetic, in a place where even an interloper can start to feel the history in the bones, well, McIlroy thought he stayed in his bubble. “Yeah, not as much pressure as maybe I would have let myself previously feel,” he said.

More quietly, Smith made artwork out of a chip to five feet on No. 10. He rained in a 16-foot putt on No. 11 and an 11-footer on No. 12. The holes began to widen as they do for a whoa of a putter who always has felt like a natural. Once he hit his 9-iron to 18 feet at No. 13, he began to think, “We can win this thing.” An approach to five feet on No. 14 did not deter that feeling.

Through the heather and gorse but never in same, the chaser had chased until McIlroy had to chase on the stingier closing holes (except for No. 18). The frenzy fizzled, and the choice view belonged to Smith’s playing partner, Young, who said, “I had a front-row seat to I’m sure one of the better rounds that’s been played this year.”

Smith solved a glitch on No. 17, where he wound up in front of the dreaded bunker and putted from afar. He birdied from two feet on No. 18, which rendered the eagle Young had just finished a pretty bit of window dressing. It left McIlroy with four top-10 finishes in majors this year, for a player Smith called “great” and “one of those guys you can’t help but stop when he’s hitting balls on the range,” and, “For me, I’ve played with Rory a few times, and there’s really nothing that you can fault.”

Ultimately, though, it left golf followers with another name to elevate to the top of the consciousness. “I’ve played with Cam a lot,” Hovland said. “He’s obviously super impressive. … He doesn’t have that wow factor when you look at him. It’s just unbelievable how he’s able to get the ball in the hole. He’ll hit a bad shot, and it just doesn’t seem to bother him because he knows he’s going to hit a great shot next. That’s what golf is all about. He’s a worthy champion for sure.”

He comes from Queensland, land of comebacks, as he mentioned this week, and where they might send to the world a quiet man who might make a glum 73 on Saturday at a loud event, get over it, reach the biggest back nine of everyone’s life by Sunday little-watched and unbothered, and think, as he put it, “I mean, you’ve got to try and win.”