Cameron Smith, in all his mustachioed and mullet glory, put on a short-game master class at TPC Southwind on Friday.
The 27-year-old Australian with a blonde flow, who tied for 59th at last year’s World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, stormed up the leaderboard with an 8-under-par 62 to pull within two strokes of leader Harris English, who shot 65.
English leads the tournament at 13 under, with Smith and Abraham Ancer tied for second at 11 under.
Smith, who is ranked 28th in the Official World Golf Rankings after finishing in a tie for 10th at the Tokyo Olympics last week, tied a PGA Tour record for fewest putts in a single round with 18, a feat accomplished by only eight other golfers.
“I was counting my putts up and I was like, ‘That can’t be right,’ ” he said.
Smith’s work around the greens helped propel him within one stroke of tying the course record. Tom Lewis, at last year’s WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, is one of three golfers to card a 61 at TPC Southwind. Ancer also shot 62 on Friday, and English opened the tournament with a 62 on Thursday.
Smith gave himself at least a chance of establishing a PGA record and course record. On the green on No. 18 his 22-foot birdie try drifted just left of the hole at the last second, which left him with a tap-in par to close out the round.
“Yeah, it’s a pretty cool little title I guess to have next to your name,” Smith said of his place in the PGA record books. “Like I said, I was actually hitting really nice golf shots as well that ended up just going off the green and made a few of them, and had a chip‑in there for par on 4, which kept the round going. Yeah, was seeing the putts really good today.”
Smith’s day began with the first of seven birdies on No. 1. Two holes later, his tee shot on the par-5 third left him 247 yards. His approach found the greenside bunker, but he chipped in from 33 feet for eagle — one of at least seven on No. 3 Friday. Dustin Johnson, who shot 65 to get to 6 under, made one of those eagles, and he also eagled No. 16.
“Yeah, I hit a nice 7‑wood into the green there, just didn’t drift as much as I wanted to,” Smith said of his eagle on No. 3. “Had a nice lie there and was just looking to get it inside four or five feet and dripped in the front.”
Smith finished with the eagle, six birdies and zero bogeys. He two-putted four times and finished three holes without a putt. He declined to take complete credit for his performance, noting the quality of TPC Southwind’s greens.
“The greens are so good around here, if you get the ball started online and you’ve hit a good putt, most of the time they’re going in,” he said.
Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @munzly.
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