Cameron Smith arrived at Aronimink fresh off a phone call he described as the most difficult he had ever made. The 2022 Open champion split from the coach he had worked with since the age of nine, signed on with a new voice, and on Sunday at the PGA Championship walked off the 18th green with a closing 68 and his best major finish in close to two years.
The Australian had spent more than 18 months telling reporters his game had not collapsed, only that the work was not bearing fruit. He came into Aronimink off three consecutive missed cuts at majors and one of the longest droughts of his professional career. The decision to make the change, he revealed, came two weeks before the championship.
"I made a swing coach switch a couple weeks ago now to Claude," Smith said, referencing his shift to Claude Harmon III. "We've just managed to clean up a few things that were perhaps a little bit off and I feel like I've got a lot more confidence in my swing. Even out there today under the pressure, I felt like I was able to trust it already. So a lot of the positive signs."
The call to end his long-standing partnership with Grant Field, Smith acknowledged, was wrenching.
"It was a hard call to make to my coach," Smith said. "I'd been seeing Grant since I was 9 years old. So I'd been with him for 23 years and probably one of the most difficult phone calls that I've ever had to make. It's still kind of lingering, but I feel like I've made the right call, and I can see it in my golf and just my strike of the ball, and seeing some different shots. It's been nice."
Smith's defection to LIV Golf in 2022 has been widely cited as the inflection point for his major decline. The Australian rejected that diagnosis on Sunday.
"I feel like I've thrived in major championships my whole career," Smith said. "I feel like I've been able to play my best golf at major championships, and that kind of fell off. And like I mentioned before, I don't think it was from a lack of hard work. I just think you lose a little bit of confidence in your swing, and maybe in your brain, and it can all happen so quickly. That's why I needed a fresh voice in the head and almost a restart."
Smith carded a 68 on a Sunday that punished a long stretch of the field, with a few wayward drives on the back nine costing him birdie looks. He pinpointed his putt on the 18th green as his worst of the day.
"I wanted to hold that putt," Smith said. "I feel like there's a lot of good putts I hit on the back nine. The one on the 18th was probably the worst putt I hit all day. Which was frustrating, but I had lots of good looks. I'm proud of how I hung in there today and I'm proud of how I showed up this week, with a new thought and a new swing."
The Australian, who had not been in the final-round mix at a major since his Open Championship win at St. Andrews in 2022, was candid about the physical sensations that came with Sunday pressure he had not felt for some time.
"I haven't been there in a little while," Smith said when asked how the nerves manifested. "It was good. I love that stuff. That's why we compete. We compete to win. It was nice to get the heart rate up and not feel your hands and your legs get a little bit jelly. It was cool. I'm happy with how I played with all that going on as well."
Smith leaned on caddy Sam Pinfold for the back nine, keeping the chat up between shots and using internal anchors, including taking sips of water, to steady the body when Aronimink's pins started pulling the trouble in.
"You don't work hard to play crap," Smith said. "The last couple of years have been frustrating. I feel like I've been putting in the work and not really getting anything out of it."
The Australian leaves Pennsylvania with a top finish, a coach switch validated under pressure, and his strongest weekend on a major leaderboard since LIV Golf reshaped the sport. The phone call he spent two weeks dreading appears to have produced the answer Smith had stopped expecting.
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*Originally published on [Golf News Global](https://golfnews.global/article/cameron-smith-coach-split-grant-claude-2026-pga-championship-comeback). Visit for full coverage.*
