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SONY OPEN IN HAWAII

January 10, 2020

Cameron Smith

Honolulu, Hawaii

Q. Cameron, nice solid round of golf. Cap it off with a birdie on your final hole. Have to be pleased with that 65 I'm taking it?
CAMERON SMITH: Absolutely. Yeah, given the conditions, 5-under par around here I'll take any day of the week.

Course is pretty soft. The wind wasn't as bad this morning, but it was really solid.

Q. Yeah, you get around the golf course with 12 birdies; that's $12,000 to relief back in Australia. That has to make you happy.
CAMERON SMITH: Yeah, absolutely. That's a big motivator this week to try and raise as much money as I can for the guys back at home. I'm sure they'll appreciate it.

We two rounds left, so hopefully plenty more birdies.

Q. Did you come here straight from Australia?
CAMERON SMITH: Yeah.

Q. So you've seen the fires and everything close?
CAMERON SMITH: Where I was in Brisbane it's probably less affected than the areas down south, like New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, they're all not doing too good.

Yeah, it's pretty tragic to see. I flew into Sydney to come here, and we probably couldn't see -- usually from Sydney airport you can see downtown, the skyline, Sydney skyline. You couldn't see that. The smoke was pretty bad.

Q. What day did you leave there?
CAMERON SMITH: Sunday.

Q. And you have family in New South Wales, in that area?
CAMERON SMITH: Yeah, my uncle has a property in New South Wales, outside New South Wales, and he's got absolutely nothing left. Yeah, we're pretty close-knit family, so it's hit everyone a bit hard.

Yeah, I mean, it's devastating really. He's probably one the more fortunate ones out of the lot really. Some people have lost their way of work and everything, so it's pretty bad.

Q. Has it been hard for you come out here? Do you keep in contact?
CAMERON SMITH: Yeah, I've been keeping up with it. Obviously been watching the news a lot. Like I said, in Brisbane where most of the family is isn't so bad. But, yeah, got heaps of friends down there that are all in the midst of it. Yeah, just send them my thoughts and hoping they all stay safe.

Q. After you finish your round you go back and watch some TV and try to catch up with things?
CAMERON SMITH: Yeah, check my phone and see how it is. I think they were expecting a pretty bad day with the heat and the wind again, so hopefully -- you know, they can only do what they can do.

Q. Yesterday with the conditions here, tough to get birdies, but picked up today and got it going.
CAMERON SMITH: Yeah, I putted really well yesterday. Didn't really do too much else that good. Holed a lot of putts.

Then today I felt like I struck it well and then I putted just as good. Just had shorter putts, which was nice.

Q. How much is the motivation to get the birdies?
CAMERON SMITH: It's definitely motivating. I'm trying not to think about it too much out on the course. I'm just trying to do my thing, and that's probably best way to raise as much money as I can for the fires back home.

Q. (Wind)...carryover from your play, carryover from Presidents Cup.
CAMERON SMITH: I mean, it's been pretty close this year. In past years I've had three weeks, four weeks off before I get here, and I'm typically pretty lazy when I'm home, eating pies and all that stuff.

So it's actually been quite good in the fact that I've been able to kind of carry over and I played really well at the Presidents Cup and played again the next week quite solidly.

Yeah, so it's definitely carried over I think more than previous.

Q. What is a successful year for you this year?
CAMERON SMITH: I would like to get a win in there somewhere. Like to get to the TOUR Champs and hopefully scrape into the top 20 there, the three big ones, so see what I can do.

Q. Thoughts going into the weekend? You're right up there near the top.
CAMERON SMITH: Yeah, it's good. I mean, given the windy conditions, you can kind of -- you can have a good day and make up so much ground, so I think I to keep doing what I'm doing.

You know, plenty of fairways, plenty of greens, that's going to be the key over the weekend again. Expecting more weather like this, so see what happens.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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