Fear the Mullet: No Player Looks Less Like a Masters Champion Than Cameron Smith, But Watch Out This Week

Smith is currently ranked sixth in the world and fresh off a victory at the Players Championship. He's on the rise, and he just might see green this week.

Gary Van Sickle | Apr 4, 2022

Fear the Mullet: No Player Looks Less Like a Masters Champion Than Cameron Smith, But Watch Out This Week /

AUGUSTA, Ga.—Picture a green jacket, the kind awarded annually to the Masters Tournament champion.

Now picture a green jacket with a mullet spilling over the back collar.

It could happen this week. While no player looks less like a Masters champion than Cameron Smith, the young Aussie with The Mullet (yes, it deserves its own capital letters), no player’s game looks more like it belongs to a Masters champion than Smith’s.

In fact, no player without a major championship already on the resume is a more obvious Masters pick than Smith, ranked sixth in the world. He’s finished second, fifth and tenth in three of his last four Masters and he’s coming off a convincing victory at The Players Championship that revealed him as the game’s best putter.

Forget No. 1 in the Official World Golf Rankings. A Masters victory might bump Smith up to No. 1 in the UWMR—Unofficial World Mullet Rankings. I looked it up on the Internet and there is no consensus on the Greatest Of All Time but the contenders for Best In Mullet include Billy Ray Cyrus (still?), Charlie Sheen, Andre Agassi (past his expiration date), a young Chuck Norris (Chuck Norris was young once?), Ellen DeGeneres (hey, this is gender-inclusive stuff) and, I’m not making this up, Florence Henderson. You’d think the Internet would be more current, right? Henderson and “The Partridge Family” went off the air in 1974, 19 years before Smith, 28, was born.

The Masters has a long history of hair care. In 1972, Ben Crenshaw arrived to play his first Masters. He’d won a pair of NCAA titles, had boy-next-door good looks and long hair, for a golfer. It was the ‘70s, after all, which gave us bell-bottoms and Sansabelt slacks. He was introduced to tournament chairman Clifford Roberts, Crenshaw recalled before the 2015 Masters, and Roberts talked at length about the many Texans who had done well in the tournament and how he’d spent time in Texas selling oil leases and clothing and, by the way, Ben, did you know there’s a barbershop on the grounds right off the front porch by the locker room? Crenshaw took the hint and immediately ducked in for a haircut.

(The barbershop is long gone now. I once got a pricey haircut there in the early 1980s and the barber used some kind of power-tool scalp massager at the end and, wow, it was amazing. And it was followed by a cloud of talcum powder smacked on my head.)

Fifty years later, it’s a different time. We’ve got other problems in this country but hairstyles are not one of them. Credit Smith for coming up with a way to make himself readily identifiable, not that his was intent. He just likes The Mullet. As for his mother, “I think she’s coming around to it, slightly,” Smith joked Monday before he went out for a practice round at Augusta National Golf Club.

Smith has inadvertently built his own brand with his hair style. Meet Cam Smith, The Mullet-Man of The People. You just can’t hate on a guy with a mullet.

There is no wagering at Bushwood Country Club, of course, but I placed a few pesos on Smith to win the Masters via DraftKings.com. (For context, I bet Scottie Scheffler to win the Match Play before the Match Play started, a nice payoff, but last week I piled on Ryan Palmer after he jumped into the Valero Open lead. So I’m no clairvoyant and I’m not staying at a Holiday Inn during Masters week, either.)

There’s a lot to like about The Mullet. Smith was runner-up to Dustin Johnson in the 2020 Masters, the one played in November with dramatically different conditions, and became the first player to post all four rounds in the 60s. You can’t forget his sizzling Player finish at TPC Sawgrass that featured ten birdies and 13 one-putts.

He has the feel of a 2015 Jordan Spieth 2.0. Smith’s chipping and pitching rival Spieth’s and so does his putting. Spieth won the first two majors that year and chased a potential calendar-year Grand Slam all the way to the 72nd hole of the Open Championship at St. Andrews. This isn’t a prediction that Smith is going match that but Smith proves what Spieth proved—a player who makes putts and who saves pars is a player who can win any tournament, anywhere.

And Smith has shown he can do it at Augusta. His putting rates comparisons to the all-time greats, including Crenshaw and Bobby Locke and even a young-ish Tiger Woods. He credits playing the Sandbelt courses of Australia for helping create his creative eye for putting.

“Augusta reminds me a lot of Royal Melbourne,” Smith said. “You hit a lot of putts from inside 15 feet where’ you’re aiming four and five feet outside the hole. It’s nice to have that in the back pocket, I guess. For me, it’s always about keeping the tempo of the putter head. These greens get quite fast so you can get quite tentative. Just keeping the tempo up and making sure the ball is hitting the back of the hole and hitting good putts.”

He remembers what the greens were like when he played his first Masters in 2016. “Quite scary,” Smith said with a laugh. “My first time here, I felt so hesitant with the putter. I was trying to see balls drift in the front edge whereas over the past few years, I’ve been a little more aggressive and not scared of that three- and four-footer coming back.”

Spieth was Tiger-esque with his iron play at his peak in 2015. Smith is not quite at the level but his ballstriking has steadily improved over the past three seasons. He ranks fifth in greens hit in regulation; eight in strokes gained with approach shots; and 5th in proximity to the hole from 100-125 yards. Overall, his proximity to the hole rank is 67th. That’s not impressive. Then again, his make-range with his putter means that number doesn’t have to be as impressive as Tiger or Spieth.

As for his putting, seeing is believing. He ranks first in putts per green hit in regulation. Here’s a number that is relevant to Augusta National—he is 10th in three-putt avoidance. One key to getting a green jacket is avoiding three-putt greens on a course where they are more likely than any other course.

Maybe the best thing about Smith is his lack of pretension. He’s won five times on the PGA Tour and more than $22 million. His idea of a good time is a beer or two with the guys and a bit of fishing. He came from Brisbane, Australia, and resettled to the Jacksonville, Fla., area seven years ago. His celebration after the Players was muted, he said, because he was worn out after a trying weekend.

Smith took the last three weeks off since the Players and he sounds like a player taking dead aim.

“I feel pretty hungry, mate,” Smith said in response to a question from a fellow Aussie media person. “This is a pretty good time of the year to be playing good golf. It’s just nice to contend. I can’t wait to get back out there this week.”

He was also asked if he feels like he’s closer to winning a major since the Players. “I think my game is already there,” Smith said. “The Players, it was nice to tick that box. But I feel as though I can compete against anyone in any given week.”

So far, Woods is the only player to have won a Players and a Masters in the same year. Smith admitted that if he is able to duplicate the feat, it would “be neat” to have his name next to Tiger’s in the record book.

If you’re drafting the game’s hottest players, Scottie Scheffler would be the first pick with three quick wins that vaulted him to No. 1 in the world. The second pick? It’s got to be Smith. Great putting is the ultimate weapon in golf. Now he’s got the confidence and the validation that comes from winning a big-deal event, the Players.

He was asked if any other players have started asking him for putting advice. “No, not particularly,” Smith answered. “We’re all out here for a reason. It’s because we’re pretty good golfers. We all know what works for ourselves and what doesn’t. Definitely no one knocking on my shoulder.”

How about haircut advice? Smith laughed. “None of that, either,” he said, shaking his mullet. “I don’t know if anyone else wants to rock it, to be honest.”

The Mullet is one-of-a-kind in golf. If adorned by a green jacket, one is probably enough.

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