Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen denies home favorite Cam Smith to win the Australian Open

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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen won the Australian Open on Sunday and earned a spot in the Masters when he scrambled for par on the final hole at Royal Melbourne for a 1-under 70 to crush the hopes of home favorite Cam Smith, who missed a 5-foot par putt to force a playoff.

Neergaard-Petersen, who secured a PGA Tour card for 2026 through his play on the European tour, won his first professional title on a major tour by holing a 10-foot par putt. Augusta National this year began offering an invitation to the winner of the Australian Open.

Smith and Neergaard-Petersen came to the 72nd hole tied at 15-under par after a thrilling contest over the last nine holes. The Dane went after the right pin and it faded beyond the bunker into difficult rough. He did well to flop that to 10 feet.

Smith found the green but faced a long, sloping putt to the hole that he ran some 5 feet by the hole. Neergaard-Petersen holed his par putt, and Smith missed his to the left in his bid to win for the first time in more than two years.

The Dane finished at 15-under 269. Smith started the last round two shots behind the leader, drew level by the turn and led outright after sinking a 10-foot birdie putt on No. 10.

After a birdie at the 11th, Smith bogeyed the 12th and was level with Neergaard-Petersen at 13 under. The pair stayed locked together until the final hole when Smith's missed par putt handed the 26-year-old Dane a career-changing victory.

“It’s hard. I’m really at a loss for words. It’s been a battle all day,” Neergaard-Petersen said. “Even from the outside, you can look calm but it was a storm inside (for me) all day.

“But I managed to keep battling and to get it up and down to make that putt on the last. I don’t know what to say, to be honest.”

Smith, the 2022 British Open champion, ended his streak of missing seven consecutive cuts this year and nearly got his name on the Stonehaven Cup. His last victory came at the LIV tournament in Bedminster, New Jersey, in August 2023.

Rory McIlroy's 11 bogeys over four days, including an unfortunate encounter with a banana peel on Saturday, kept him out of contention. On Sunday, the Northern Irishman had a final round 69, with five birdies and three bogeys, to finish in a tie for 10th.

Si Woo Kim (70) finished third, followed by Michael Hollick of South Africa (65) and former Masters champion Adam Scott (70). All three earned spots in next year's British Open.

McIlroy, the Race to Dubai winner who completed his career Grand Slam when he won the Masters this year, was making his first appearance at the Australian Open since 2015. He won it in 2013.

Speaking after his final round Sunday, the second-ranked McIlroy called for a more favorable schedule to attract more of the game's top players. While he thought the sandbelt courses held massive appeal, the scheduling didn’t help the tournament attract the top overseas players.

“I obviously would love to have a few more players come down and play, but it’s hard with three tournaments going on in the schedule this week,” said McIlroy, referring to the schedule clash with Tiger Woods’ Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas and the European tour's Nedbank Challenge in South Africa. “There need to be conversations had with people much more important than me that set the schedules, and hopefully the Australian Open can find a date that accommodates everyone and everyone can at least have the option to come down.

“People seeing the scenes here on TV … it’ll definitely pique their interest."

The winner of the Australian Open, which is the second event on the European tour’s new schedule of tournaments for late this year and 2026, receives a Masters exemption next year. And the top three finishers not already exempt — Hollick, Scott and Kim — have qualified for the British Open in 2026 at Royal Birkdale.

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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf