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The final results for the 2022 Open Championship at The Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland are in. Australian Cameron Smith won by one stroke over runner-up Cameron Young.
This is Smith’s first major championship win and 6th PGA Tour win, moving him to position #2 in the OWGR. He previously won the 2022 Players Championship.
Leaderboard
Below is the truncated top 10 leaderboard:
- (1) Cameron Smith (-20)
- (2) Cameron Young (-19)
- (3) Rory McIlroy (-18)
- (T4) Tommy Fleetwood (-14)
- (T4) Viktor Hovland (-14)
- (T6) Brian Harman (-13)
- (T6) Dustin Johnson (-13)
- (T8) Bryson DeChambeau (-12)
- (T8) Patrick Cantlay (-12)
- (T8) Jordan Spieth (-12)
For the full leaderboard, go here.
Analysis & Statistics
Here is some of my analysis on the champion and other notables near the top of the leaderboard:
Winner: Cameron Smith (-20)
- turned pro in 2013
- won the Australian PGA Championship twice in a row (2017 & 2018)
- has 3 DP World Tour wins and 6 PGA Tour wins
- now has three wins in 2022 including The Players and the Sentry Tournament of Champions
- has finished inside the top 10 at the Masters for the last three years
- moves to #2 in the OWGR
Last year at Royal St. George’s, Smith finished T33.
To me, Smith seems like one of the many super-talented young golfers that are going to be a major threat moving forward, similar to the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele, and Collin Morikawa. This guy has guts and has proven that he can thrive under pressure.
However, at the time of writing, there is speculation that Smith will soon sign onto LIV Golf, in which case he would no longer play PGA Tour events and his ability to play on the DP World Tour would also be at risk. Time will tell what happens.
Scoring
In Round 4, Smith made eight birdies to shoot an 8-under 64. He shot an incredible 30 on the back nine with five straight birdies on holes 10-14 and a birdie on 18.
Scores in regulation: 67, 64, 73, 64
The 2022 Champion Golfer of the Year📸 #The150thOpen pic.twitter.com/uMToKxk8qh
— The Open (@TheOpen) July 18, 2022
Runner-Up (-19)
Cameron Young (who coincidentally has the same first name as the winner) only just earned his PGA Tour card for the 2021-2022 season. At 25 years old, this is his first Open Championship start.
Young has two Korn Ferry Tour wins, and he also finished T3 at this year’s PGA Championship. This guy has shown that he can deliver at the world’s biggest events, and it will be interesting to see how he performs in the coming years.
As for the 3rd place finisher, Rory McIlroy, it really was his tournament to lose. Unfortunately, he was stuck in neutral in the final round and just couldn’t get it done.
It’s worth noting that the lowest scorer who is part of the LIV Golf Tour was Dustin Johnson, who finished T6 at -13.
A Note On Tiger
I was not surprised to see Tiger perform the way he did this week. All the signs were pointing that way, such as his poor performance at the JP McManus Pro-Am.
As much as Tiger would have us believe otherwise, I think the reality is that he was never ready to play golf this year. His leg needs more time to recover. On top of that, he probably doesn’t practice that much, nor can he get enough tournament reps to be sharp every week.
Who knows whether this will be the new Tiger moving forward or if he will do better next year when his recovery has come farther along.
Have any congratulations for Cameron, or any other thoughts about this year’s Open? Go ahead and leave a comment below.
