Bravery pays off for Cameron Smith with most astounding back-nine burst in major history

On the 10th tee, with the wind at his back and his fate in his hands, Cameron Smith decided that he was not going to die wondering. What followed, over the next two hours, was quite possibly the finest back nine in the history of major championships. A quintuple of birdies, coupled with an icily-composed putt around the rim of the Road Hole bunker, constituted a devastating salvo to which Rory McIlroy had no answer.

It was an object lesson in the philosophy required to seize prizes of this magnitude. Where McIlroy toiled to defend a lead, Smith snatched the glory with a nerveless audacity. “Being behind in certain situations is maybe a good thing,” he reflected. “It’s very easy to get defensive out there and keep hitting it to 60, 70ft. You can make pars all day, but you’re not going to make birdies.”

When it needed it most, this laconic Australian, who has been unwinding in his St Andrews hotel room each night with episodes of Peaky Blinders, unearthed his winning instinct, surging past McIlroy with a display of inexorable, irresistible brilliance. The only regret was that his father, Des – a printer from suburban Brisbane who would start work at 6am to ensure that young Cameron could squeeze in a few holes each day before tea – was not here to witness it in the flesh.

Des had decided, he explained, that a 20,000-mile round trip was difficult to justify for one week of golf. But few such weeks culminate in the spectacle of your son lifting the Claret Jug with the Auld Grey Toon as a backdrop. Perhaps Smith Snr should have seen the historical portents: just as Kel Nagle grasped the Centenary Open on this stage in 1960, his young successor ensured that another grand anniversary, the 150th, would fall into Australian