Wayne Grady didn’t get it, Ian Baker-Finch didn’t get it and Magnum PI-lookalike Ossie Moore didn’t get it either. Jason Day and Adam Scott didn’t get it and nor did the great Karrie Webb.
Not since the Great White Shark Greg Norman have Queenslanders so flocked and bayed and been drawn as if by siren song to a fellow Cane Toad as they were when Cameron Smith turned up at Royal Queensland for last year’s Australian PGA Championship.
As the kids today would tell you, there were scenes.
The carpark and driving range were bubbling when the sun rose at 04:46. The McDonalds at Murarrie did unprecedented McMuffin traffic. When Smith teed off at 06:03 with Scott and Kiwi Ryan Fox, it’s estimated there were two thousand people craning for a look.
By 6:39am the next day, according to tournament organisers, more people had come through the gates than did for the entire 2013 tournament at Royal Pines, the one headlined by Scott – who was on a green jacket appreciation tour after winning that year’s Masters – and Rickie Fowler – who was Rickie Fowler.
Smith was, to quote Ron Burgundy, kind of a big deal, a genuine Australian sports megastar, the biggest thing out of North Brisbane since the Bruce Highway. He’d won the Open Championship at St Andrews with a brilliant Sunday 64. He’d won the ‘Fifth Major’, the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. He’d reached No.2
