Fellow Australian Marc Leishman is tied in second place with Belgium's Thomas Pieters and surging South African Louis Oosthuizen after the second round at Centurion Club on Saturday.

Smith, who has yet to win this year, is playing his final event ahead of his Open Championship title defence in two weeks at Royal Liverpool.

He reached 12-under 130. His last victory was the LIV event outside Chicago last September.

There's something about grinding out a good round," Smith added. "Yeah, it definitely wasn't my prettiest stuff, but really proud of the way that I hung in there.

"It could have gone south really quick there ... It was nice to kind of keep that momentum going heading into tomorrow, as well."

Leishman was slowed by back-to-back bogeys early on the back nine and shot 69.

Pieters, who joined LIV at the start of the season, had a double bogey on the 1st hole and dropped another shot at the 7th. But his birdie on the 8th was the start of three in a row, and he shot 31 on the back nine to finish with a 67.

Oosthuizen was nine-under for his round with four holes to play and had a 63.

"It definitely wasn't my prettiest stuff, but really proud of the way that I hung in there. It could have gone south really quick there ... It was nice to kind of keep that momentum going heading into tomorrow, as well." – Cam Smith.

In the team competition, Smith's all-Australian Ripper GC is at 23-under and leads by one over Stinger, with Oosthuizen as the captain.

"If we can look after the individual, play as well as we can, all shoot good scores, the team stuff will take care of itself," Leishman said.

"Hopefully we can do that. Hopefully I can make a bit of a run at Cam tomorrow and make things interesting."

The Smash GC team has been in the news for the wrong reasons this week. The captain, PGA champion Brooks Koepka, took to the media to unload on teammate Matthew Wolff, criticising him of quitting on rounds and not working.

Wolff responded by saying he still was working on mental health and it was heartbreaking to hear Koepka's criticism.

Koepka shot 66. Wolff's two eagles were offset by four bogeys in his round of 69. Smash were in seventh place out of 12 teams.