Cameron Smith has now gone two seasons without an individual win and sits 27th in the 2026 LIV Golf rankings. As captain of Ripper GC and a former Open champion, this isn’t something anyone would expect from him. But on Friday at Valderrama, he made it clear he believes he has found his form again.

“All of it, really, to be honest. I feel like, because I’m hitting it a little bit better, I can be a little bit more aggressive with the putter. They haven’t quite started dropping yet, but I’ve hit plenty of good putts, and it feels like I’m back to my old self, I guess, and being aggressive,” he said at the LIV Golf Andalucía press conference when asked which part of his game had improved.

Finishing T7 at the 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink ended a run of six missed cuts in majors and was the first real sign that things were changing for Smith. He is now second in the league for scrambling at 64.43%. His scoring average is 69.6, which ranks sixth, even though he stands in 27th place overall. The groundwork had been improving before the results started to show.

In 2023, Smith won twice on LIV and finished second in the season standings, and that seems to be the standard he is aiming for now. The story of his renewed confidence did not start at Valderrama. At LIV Golf Korea, Smith first showed the public that something was shifting:

“It seems like the confidence is back, and I’ve seen a few putts go in and am just really keeping up momentum.”

The issues are still there, but now that his confidence is back, the rest should fall in place. His fairway accuracy is 52.46%, which puts him in the league’s bottom third. He continues to struggle off the tee, and he has gone two full seasons without winning an individual title. He would like to change that and win so much more.

“I want to win tournaments; I want to win majors. The fire is really burning at the moment. It feels like I’m getting a lot of confidence back on the golf course again,” he told 10 News AU, showcasing that he is not satisfied with where he is now.

Smith has openly discussed the challenges LIV Golf is facing. With the Saudi Public Investment Fund not there after the 2026 season, LIV is looking for $250 million to $350 million from new investors. Smith told reporters that prize money should return to previous levels, which is a notable comment from a player whose reported $100M to $140M contract helped fuel the financial competition.

As the league considers its future, Smith seems focused on his own path.

LIV Golf’s Cam Smith and the player he was at St. Andrews

Smith joined LIV after delivering one of the most notable final rounds in major championship history.

At the 150th Open at St. Andrews in July 2022, he started the last day four shots behind; at the end, he finished the day with 8 under. That was the lowest final round by an Open winner at the Old Course. He made five birdies in a row on the back nine.

He finished at 20-under, matching the lowest score to par in major history, and won by one stroke over Cameron Young. Weeks later, he signed with LIV. That round set the standard for Smith at his best: aggressive, focused, and confident on the greens.

Now, Smith says that aggression is coming back. The putting stroke from St. Andrews did not go away. It was just affected for some time. Now, after Valderrama, he suggests that this period may be ending.