Cameron Smith, whose Masters participation was in doubt after a recent bout of food poisoning forced him out of his final tune-up event with LIV Golf, said on Tuesday his game felt good despite a less than ideal lead-in to the year's first major.
The Australian, one of 13 LIV Golf players in the field for the April 11-14 Masters, withdrew from last week's LIV Golf event in Miami after one round.
"Probably just tried to do a little bit too much and body just kind of shut down on me," Smith, who joined LIV Golf six weeks after winning the 2022 British Open, told reporters following some practice at Augusta National.
"Yeah, spent the weekend in the bed, which wasn't the greatest preparation, but I was just saying that today is probably the first day where I feel like I've got a little bit of energy.
"I'm sure I'll be pretty cooked tonight. At least I could get around and feel okay."
Despite the limited preparation for the Masters, Smith is encouraged by his performance at last month's LIV Golf event in Hong Kong where he lost in a three-way playoff.
"Game feels good," said Smith. "Probably a few weeks there at the start of the year, trying to address some stuff in the swing and just felt a little bit uncomfortable and just hard to commit on some really tough driving courses, to be honest.
"It was good to play nice in Hong Kong and kind of know that it's still there. It was feeling nice last week just – yeah."
During his Tuesday practice round Smith nearly got soaked at the par-five 13th hole, a sweeping dogleg left that features a tributary to Rae's Creek which winds in front of the green.
"I didn't try to jump, I just tried to get on a couple of rocks, and I had metals in my right shoe and I slipped. A bit of comedy for the crowd there," said Smith.
"The only thing I was thinking as I was going down was not to get wet, so I managed to actually do all right. I think my glove was – I had to throw my glove out and my shoes were a bit wet, but that's about it."
Smith is scheduled to make his eighth Masters appearance this week and has top 10 finishes in four of the past six years at Augusta National, including being a runner-up in 2020.