A quartet of Australian stars outshone superstar drawcard Rory McIlroy at the Australian Open at Royal Melbourne, heading into the final round with their eyes fixed on the famous Stonehaven Cup.
From the depths of despair last week in the Australian PGA Championship after missing his seventh straight cut, former World No.2 Smith was the outright leader on Saturday after walking off the 17th green with a birdie.
He then bogied the 18th after an errant approach on the final hole, but finished his third round at 12 under par and tied with Si Woo Kim and Mexico’s Carlos Ortiz in pursuit of Denmark’s Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen at -14.
After his third round, Smith said he’d go back to his hotel room and watch the Ashes after some more practice on the range.
“I don’t think anything has to change – I’ll go hit a few balls now and clean some stuff up, go out there tomorrow and just let it go again,” he smiled.
Adam Scott and Min Woo Lee are both in contention, four shots back at -10, while Victorian Lucas Herbert, who started his tournament with a four over par first round, is tied for 10th, six shots from the lead.
But Neergaard-Petersen remains the man to catch after carding his second straight round of 66 to be two shots clear.
Australians Elvis Smylie and Marc Leishman are in the chasing pack at seven-under and six-under respectively.
McIlroy, who made double bogey on the second hole, birdied five of his last 10 holes to card a three-under round of 68, putting him five shots back from the lead.
After a rare air swing on Friday, drama once again followed McIlroy around Royal Melbourne – a banana skin impeding his second shot on the par-four second hole.
He made double and was playing catch-up for the rest of his round.
“It was a bit of a double whammy as it was in that [tuft] of long grass with a banana skin over it,” McIlroy said with a laugh.
“I shouldn’t have been there in the first place after a terrible tee shot. It wasn’t the best way to start.”
McIlroy, who wasn’t exactly beaming with confidence after his third round, will be out to play aggressively on Sunday in an attempt to climb up the leaderboard.
“I didn’t get off to the greatest of starts, but I felt I responded well,” McIlroy told broadcasters.
“I played the back nine well again, but I just need to figure out how to make some birdies on the front nine.
“Overall, I’m happy with how I responded. I’ll probably be a little too far behind to try to challenge on Sunday, but I will try to end the week on a positive note and shoot my lowest score.”
Herbert will need another low score, after shooting 75 on Thursday to put himself on the back foot.
But he celebrated his 30th birthday on Friday with a 65 and backed it up for a near identical round on Saturday.
I knew I was going to be a long way back, but I felt like I knew this course just about as well as anyone out here,” Herbert said on Saturday afternoon.
“Maybe some of the veteran guys are pretty wily around these parts of the world, but I played here a lot as an amateur. I felt like, especially with the conditions being different every day, coming Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I just felt like experience was going to help the last three rounds. I felt like I had that on my side.
“I knew today was going to be a really tough day because you want to push, and you feel like you’ve got to get yourself back into the tournament. You want to keep trying to make putts and make birdies, and it’s just not a golf course you can do that.
“You have to be so patient. To shoot 65, I guess doing it the right way – I never did anything silly. I picked apart the golf course really, really well and stood here very, very satisfied with that round of golf.”
Lee, meanwhile, has unique plan for his final round on Sunday – sushi from Mum at every hole.
“She gave it to me a hole late [today] and I bogeyed [hole] 10, so I can blame this one on her… nah,” Lee said with a laugh.
“The sushi obviously helps. I’ll just eat one on every hole tomorrow.”