Nearly a week later, British Open champion Cameron Smith is still getting chills about his breakthrough win.
“It still gives me goosebumps,” he said on Nine’s Today.
“I’m getting goosebumps thinking about it. It was just unreal. To win an Open Championship, I think, is every kid’s little dream.”
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Smith’s total of 20-under left him one shot clear of American Cameron Young, with third-round co-leader Rory McIlroy a further shot back.
“To do it at St Andrews is just another kind of level,” he said.
“You know, the way the whole week kind of panned out, it was just unreal.”
Smith said it still hadn’t sunk in and that the feeling was “pretty surreal”.
“I felt as though I played really good golf obviously all week. You know, for it to all come together the way it did on that last day was pretty special.”
As he mentioned straight after the win, Smith’s father made a late call to not fly over for the event, missing his son’s finest moment.
“He just kind of didn’t end up wanting to come last minute,” Smith said
“He was going to come over and it was just kind of going to be hard with hotels and stuff like that, so he just said, ‘I’ll just stay at home. I don’t want to bother you anyway,’ and yeah, he’s kicking himself now.”
But he was straight on the phone afterwards.
“It was pretty cool. I spoke to Dad straight away off the course. He was just really emotional – Dad’s really not an emotional guy, he doesn’t cry too often,” Smith said.
“Yeah, he was getting all choked up and my mum was kind of the same way. But, you know, mum cries over everything. So I was kind of expecting it.”
Smith said afterwards that he planned to find out how many beers would fit in the famous claret jug, and that the party would keep rolling now that he was back in the Florida city of Jacksonville, where he resides.
“I can’t remember too much from that night past 10 or 11 o’clock – yeah, we definitely had a good crack. We had a lot of fun that night,” he said.
“I’m having another little party, a barbecue, tomorrow afternoon with a few of the lads. We’ll fill it up a few more times tomorrow, I’m sure.”
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