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Like a sunrise, 25-year-old Cameron Davis’ career is unfolding gradually and, like the morning light, the glow continues to get brighter.
Davis, a native Australian, is one of those players whose name still may be only vaguely familiar to most golf watchers. But in his third full season on the PGA Tour, he’s made himself a fixture on weekends, making nine cuts in 10 starts this season.
Tall and with a swing that’s as pretty as it is powerful, Davis is just one weekend from properly announcing his arrival as a force on the PGA Tour.
Davis came close recently with a fine performance in the American Express where he shot 66-64 on the weekend to finish solo third, his best PGA Tour result to date.
“That’s the best I’ve dealt with being near the lead in a while,” Davis said. “I’ve not gotten it done out here and I really want to do it.
“Really wanting to play well usually leads to the opposite happening because as most people know, their best rounds of golf usually come when they’re not expecting it or not really trying that hard. It just starts getting into a groove.”
That fits the arc of Davis’s development.
He jumped onto the international stage when he won the 2017 Emirates Australian Open, defeating, among others, Jason Day, Cameron Smith and Jordan Spieth. It was a huge win in his homeland and it helped springboard him to the United States where he followed the traditional path of playing on the developmental Korn Ferry Tour then graduating to the PGA Tour.
“When I first got out here, I thought since I was playing against the best players in the world, I need to play my absolute best to even have a chance. Even making the cut seemed like a really difficult task."
Cameron Davis
Davis learned the game working with highly regarded Khan Pullen in Australia and, after establishing himself in the US, his career has been groomed further by Neale Smith, who focuses on the mental side as well as the physical side.
“He has a very nice skill set,” said Smith, who was the medalist in the 1992 PGA Tour qualifying school. “Obviously high power. His good golf is very good. It’s a classic case of a young player learning to get comfortable out here and seeing what’s required to become a better player. He’s taking those steps.
“He’s getting comfortable. The American Express was a big turning point. He was right in the thick of it and continued to play well down the stretch. That was his best tournament out here.
“I believe confidence has to be earned and that was a feather in his cap moving forward.”
When Davis describes his development on the PGA Tour, it sounds familiar. Get your head around being out there. Learn how to travel and which courses best suit your game. Make cuts. Get comfortable in contention. Then, hopefully, win.
“When I first got out here, I thought since I was playing against the best players in the world, I need to play my absolute best to even have a chance,” said Davis, who missed the top 125 in FedEx Cup points in his first full season. “Even making the cut seemed like a really difficult task.
“My first season was aimed at trying to keep my card. The amount of extra pressure that puts on you makes it very difficult to concentrate on the right things. You’re inside the cut line, you should be looking forward to the lead. Instead, you’re trying not to take two steps back.”
Now, Davis is challenged by not trying to do too much. Call it patience or experience or growth, Smith says he’s getting there.
“Guys start to have good rounds, they’re on leaderboards more regularly and you can see over the months where they’re trending,” he said. “He’s trending in a very nice direction.
“Because his good is very good, sometimes he goes for pins that a veteran player wouldn’t because he has the ability to hit it higher and further than most guys. It’s always tempting for him. Sometimes the plan at the bag may get changed when he’s over the ball because he can. It’s a balance between using those gifts and also playing smart.”
Where Davis steps a bit outside the conventional box is by living in Seattle, Washington. It’s a lovely, global city but the Pacific Northwest is not exactly a hot destination for professional golfers, who tend to prefer Arizona or Florida for climate-related reasons.
But when Davis made his first trip to the United States he met his wife while playing the Sahalee Players Amateur. They stayed in touch, and Seattle worked well as a base when Davis played the Mackenzie Tour in Canada. Now he has no desire to leave.
As for his potential, Smith sees Davis as a classic powerful modern player but with a thread of old-school sensibility running through him. Smith points to a long-standing training technique favored by Tiger Woods – hitting nine different types of shots with each club on the range – as evidence of Davis’s desire to continue to develop as a player.
“He’s trending nicely,” Smith said. “If he was a stock, I’d be investing in him.”
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