One of Cameron Smith’s goals for the new year was cracking the top 10 in the Official World Golf Ranking. It took him just one tournament.
Smith captured the Sentry Tournament of Champions on Sunday at Kapalua, beating world No. 1 Jon Rahm in a low-scoring battle that saw Smith finish at a PGA Tour-record 34 under. A day later, the 28-year-old Aussie climbed 11 spots to No. 10 in the world rankings.
“It’s nice that that’s done and dusted,” Smith said of accomplishing the goal. “Hopefully, I can keep cruising up those world rankings.”
Smith, whose previous OWGR best was 21st, is now the highest-ranked potential International Presidents Cup competitor, as he passed Louis Oosthuizen, who dropped two spots from 10th to 12th.
“I definitely want to be on that team,” said Smith, who debuted at the international team event in 2019 at Royal Melbourne and went 1-1-1. “I enjoyed the tournament so much last time that I would be devastated if I missed out, and it’s been one of my goals since I’ve turned pro to be on the team and, yeah, I’ll try and be there again.”
Full-field scores from the Sentry Tournament of Champions
Smith also has his eyes on getting to East Lake, contending in more majors and, well, maybe he’ll need to come up with a few new ones after Sunday.
“I think one of the big goals for most of the guys out here is just to make it to Atlanta to the Tour Championship. If you make it to Atlanta, you’ve done something really good for a long period of time,” Smith said. “So, yeah, that one’s still a goal. Like I said before, being in the top 10 was another one. It’s good to tick that off so early in the year, but I guess I’ll have to reassess on a few other ones.”
Other movement in the top 25 included Justin Thomas rising to fifth, Viktor Hovland jumping to sixth, Xander Schauffele dropping to seventh and Bryson DeChambeau sliding three spots to eighth. Daniel Berger, who finished T-5 at Kapalua, moved up a spot to No. 18.
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