‘Could have been the greatest’: Greg Norman blamed for ruining Cam Smith’s career

As discussion continues about defending champion Cameron Smith’s absence from the prestigious Players Championship, Greg Norman has been accused of harming his fellow Aussie’s career and golfing legacy.

Smith will not compete at golf’s unofficial fifth major, the Players Championship (starting tonight) after making a $140m move to join the rebel LIV Golf tour led by Norman.

American golf analyst and former pro Brandel Chamblee pointed out in a blunt analysis it might ultimately be another Aussie that keeps Smith from becoming the nation’s greatest ever player, believing the 29-year-old has the ability to do so.

“It’s ironic to me that it might possibly be an Aussie that will keep another Aussie in Cameron Smith possibly from ascending to a spot where he’s considered the greatest (Australian) player of all-time,” Chamblee told the Golf Channel.

“Supplanting Peter Thomson, he had that kind of talentt. Norman didn’t get there but (Smith) could have easily supplanted Greg Norman as the second-best player of all time from Australia. That’s at least in my view where Cameron Smith was headed.

“That’s what he’s turned his back on and a lot of it has to do with Greg Norman, and Cam Smith got a lot of bad advice from his agents and other people in the game around him trying to suck him into LIV.”

Chamblee said he, like many, misses watching Smith play on the PGA Tour. LIV Golf players are still able to play in majors but banned from regular tour events.

“He had the potential to be an absolute great player,” he said. “If you look at the qualities that he had, the age that he was, he was a great scrambler – and is likely still a great scrambler, great putter, a great shot maker.

“Players like Tom Watson come to mind. At the age of 25 until [Watson] was 35, he had 35 wins, won eight major championships, really hit his stride at 27, which is what Cam Smith was last year. Twenty-seven, 28, 29, five wins, five wins, five wins in each of those years. Seven wins when he was 30 years of age, these prime years.

“And when you think of Seve Ballesteros, from the time he was 22 until he was 31 he won five majors. He set the world on fire and was fairly much the same type of player that we saw in Cameron Smith last year at St Andrews. These are exciting players – scramblers, they’re unpredictable, they break your heart and then they do monumentally unbelievable things.”

There has been a feeling of unease from fellow players about Smith’s absence from The Players Championship this week.

It was a fact acknowledged by PGA Tour boss Jay Monahan, who conceded it was “awkward” that Smith, banned from playing after his defection to the start-up tour last year, wasn’t in the field.

But it’s not just Smith who isn’t playing.

Five of last year’s top-10 finishers at TPC Sawgrass have since move to LIV Golf, a group that also includes runner-up Anirban Lahiri, Dustin Johnson, Paul Casey and Harold Varner III.

While Rory McIlroy said it would “absolutely” be better for the defending champion to play in the showpiece $37m event considered by many to be the “fifth major”, he basically said Smith in particular had made his bed and had to lie in it.

“Would it be better if the defending champion was here this week? Absolutely,” he said.

“But he made a decision that he felt was the best thing for him, and he knew that decision was going to come with consequences, and one of the consequences is right now not being able to play on the PGA Tour.”