Cameron Smith revealed he was hit by a wave of unexpected emotion as he handed back the Claret Jug ahead of his Open defence at Royal Liverpool.
The Australian stunned Rory McIlroy to win the 150th edition of the game's oldest championship at St Andrews last year, coming from four behind on the final day to claim his maiden Major by a shot after a closing eight-under 64.
That earned him the title of the Champion Golfer of the Year and possession of arguably the game's most iconic trophy. It's little wonder, then, that it was so difficult to return to R&A chief Martin Slumbers.
"I just had to hand back the trophy there," he said. "I thought I was going to do all right, but I was actually holding back from tears. A bit of a moment, I guess, that crept up on me.
"It was just hard to -- it wasn't hard to hand it back. I wasn't like not letting it go. But it was just a bit of a moment that I guess you guess you don't think about and then all of a sudden it's there, and, yeah, you want it back."
Smith comes into the week in a rich vein of form having won the most recent LIV Golf event at the Centurion Club in London. The Australian made the switch to the breakaway circuit after the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup finale last year and thinks his game is in even better shape now than it was when he added the Open to his Players Championship title in a memorable 2022.
"I think I'm actually a better golfer now than what I was last year," he added. "I think the stuff that I had to clean up is progressing. It's still a little bit of a work in progress. I said this morning to someone that kind of my 5-iron and up has always been a bit of a struggle for me, and that's an area of the game that we've worked probably harder than we have on in the past.
"I feel like it's right there. It just all has to come together. I think the first round I had at Centurion a couple of weeks ago was the first time where I felt like it had all come together, and then the driver, again, wasn't my best friend on the weekend there. But I managed to kind of scramble out a good week, so, yeah, it's there. It just hasn't been there for all four rounds. But it feels really close."
'LIV will be around in future'
Smith was also quizzed about the future of LIV Golf, which appeared to be thrust into jeopardy following the shock merger that was announced between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. It was a move nobody saw coming as PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan U-turned on previous comments to strike a deal with LIV's financiers.
However, Smith is confident the fledgling series will survive the planned merger, saying: "Yeah, absolutely I'm optimistic. I think golf is in a great spot. There's obviously a lot of things that are up in the air that no one really knows at the moment.
"I don't even think the guys that are trying to sort it out really know what this outcome is going to be like. Yeah, a lot of uncertainty, but I'm optimistic that LIV will be around in the future."
