Australian Open as it happened: Great Dane Neergaard-Petersen beats Smith after last-putt heartbreaker

Here is how they finished up.

More than 100,000 fans attended the Australian Open at Royal Melbourne golf club this past week.

A crowd of 33,408 fans packed the sand belt course on Sunday and, in total, 104,900 spectators attended from Thursday to Sunday.

Organisers couldn’t say for sure if that figure is a record due to some incomplete records from the past, but it was a very healthy figure and adds to the acclaim the course and the local crowds received from players and visitors.

Here is how they finished up.

Cam Smith has fallen just short of first significant win in more than two years, after bogeying the last hole to gift Dane Rasmus Neergaard-Peterson victory on the 72nd hole of the Australian Open at Royal Melbourne.

Victory was within touching distance for the Queenslander when he hit the green on the 18th hole with his approach, and watched his Danish opponent find the thick, native rough before the bunkers.

But Neergaard-Peterson made an incredible up and down and Smith three-putted, missing a very makeable five-footer to hand his opponent victory.

But after disaster on the 18th, a devastated Cam Smith has ducked the media.

Smith spent plenty of time with the fans, signing autographs. But it was clear he didn’t want to dissect that final putt with the press.

Golf Australia has confirmed Smith won’t be talking to media.

Okay, let’s break down the incredible - and heartbreaking - scenes we have just seen.

It looked like Cam Smith had one hand on the Stonehaven Cup with Neergaard-Petersen having landed in nasty rough to the right of the green, and with a chip over a bunker to come. He did that well, and left himself a curling five-metre putt to make par.

Smith, meanwhile, had a 20-metre putt with a huge left to right break but was unbackable to put it close and two-putt for the win.

But the 26-year-old Dane then stepped up and drained a clutch par putt.

That put all the pressure on Smith, who then had a 1.5 metre putt to force a playoff. He missed it just to the left.

Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen has blinked, and put his approach to the 18th green into a nasty rough to the right of the green. He has to chip over a bunker.

Smith is safely on the green but with a long sloped putt ahead.

Both will need at least two shots to finish, but the difference in quality of the second one will be the winning and losing of this tournament.

Kim is in the back bunker and in strife.

On a hole where Rasmus missed an eagle by a centimetre, and Smith was way off the green, somehow the pair have both birdied and will stay tied on the last hole.

The 17th is a par five where birdie is a must on the last day, and after nailing a longer drive, Neergaard-Petersen also hit a superior approach with a five-iron and rolled it through to just off the green.

He missed the eagle putt by a bee’s appendage, and with it the chance to go to 16-under. But Rasmus birdied to move to 15-under.

Smith was in all sorts of trouble, after hooking his approach and bombing it on the heads of the gallery to the left of the green.

With a difficult 30-metre chip, he tried to land the ball and run it towards the hole and did well, but a sprinkler slightly slowed the ball. He then nailed a curling pressure putt from four metres.

The tension!