If there's a thousand patrons in the vicinity, 950 of them have their backs turned on former Masters champion, Adam Scott, two-time DP World Tour winner in 2023, Adrian Meronk, and the number 44 golfer in the world, PGA Tour player, Australian, Cam Davis.

Rather, heads are turned, as if drawn by siren song, to the 12th green where the local fellow, the Queenslander, is pin-high with a hybrid in his hands.

It's Cameron Smith, of course, the marquee man of this $2 million Australian PGA Championship. And it would take a booth with free Bundy Rum served by Pamela Anderson to draw punters away from the local champion. And even then they'd get one to go.

Smith’s playing partners in the 06:10 group, Min Woo Lee and Robert MacIntyre, have both clubbed 3-woods to the front of the 292m par-4 12th. Both will make the birdies befitting world class players. Yet they are supporting actors in this little show.

As Scott, Meronk and Davis wander onwards, Smith wafts and bumps his hybrid, perfectly, into the slope before the ball just tips onto the putting surface and rolls down to three feet. It’s the touch of a surgeon, the hands of Chopin. No chopper, Smith. A man yells “Ripper!”

We move onto 13 – long, into the east wind, skinny green with a sucker pin. When we reach the putting surface there is the usual almost soporific slow dance at the business end of the hole, as players analyse slope, grain, speed and who knows what else. If these people took as long in your Wednesday stableford competition other golfers would throw stubbies at them.

The galleries were out in force for marquee man Cam Smith. PHOTO: PGA of Australia

Here, though, it’s kind of a big deal. It’s round one of the 2024 Race to Dubai, the PGA Championship of Australia, a tournament won by Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, Gary Player and Kel Nagle (six times). 

Smith owns three titles and along with all the rest – Open Championship, LIV millions, the (approaching-if-not-already-cliched) knockabout-Aussie-fishing-XXXX-mullet thing - has thus attracted perhaps 95 per cent of the greater fan attention here on an alternately humid, rainy, warm, wet and slightly windy Thursday morning.

When the dust of this marquee roadshow clears, Harrison Crowe stiffs one to four feet on 13 and makes birdie. Earlier, on 11, he’d nearly aced the par-3. You wouldn’t say nobody cares because some people do. His mum and dad would care. His mates would care. Yet most folks here at RQ are away and in thrall to old mate Mullet.

Cameron Smith couldn't get it going around Royal Queensland on Thursday, carding a 2-over 73 he described as "frustrating, upsetting" and "crappy". PHOTO: PGA of Australia

Rain falls. The east wind blows. Gusts come in over Moreton Bay and fans gather under the mighty canopy of a fig tree with the bay's name. We see Scott make birdie on the par-5 15th, which into the easterly is a genuine three-shotter, even for the bombers.

The Moreton Bay tree-huggers applaud from shelter before heading back to the rope as Smith emerges from the mist. Everything feels a little muted, as if softened by the squalls. Call it MacIntyre Weather. A gun, the Scotsman, he'll go around in 2-under 69.

The players are grinding. Golf at the pinnacle isn’t played for ‘fun’. It’s pro-ball golf. They ‘execute’ shots as a lawyer would your grandma’s will. ‘I’s are dotted, ‘T’s are crossed. No surprises. Play for par. Keep bogey away as you would weird Uncle Hector.

Min Woo Lee speaks to a large claque of media after his round of 7-under 64. PHOTO: PGA of Australia

And thus, it’s rarely spectacular. We swoon, of course, because they appear so very good. But if a pro-ball golfer needs something spectacular it’s because they’re desperate. That’s why people loved Seve Ballesteros: because he hit the ball all over the planet and made birdies like a conjurer.

MacIntyre – who’s playing his fifth week in a row of grinding pro-ball golf after tournaments in Spain, Qatar, South Africa and Dubai – has hit a drive on 16 under the boughs of a big bay fig. From there he smacks a low-running sizzler to the front of the green. It’s fun and funky stuff, and example 87 million of why golf’s more fun when the ball’s rolling.

Alas, it's not happening for Smith. He’s chopping it about from his usual meat-and-potato range of 150m in. A nine-iron fades low and right, effete. A wedge misses the green right. Wayne Riley once said that missing green with wedge is like missing your mouth with your fork. Smith misses on 18, too.

Cameron Smith strides off Royal Queensland after his round. PHOTO: PGA of Australia

Apparently desperate and trying to conjure something, Smith takes driver off the deck on the par-5 7th and makes bogey on a birdie hole, signing off on his title defence with 2-over 73.

“It was frustrating, upsetting. I really couldn’t get anything going," Smith said.

"I’d hit what felt like a decent shot and it’d end up 30 or 40 feet … it was crappy.

“It was hard to commit to a shot. I felt like I was over the ball, not knowing what I was going to do which is a bad place to be on a golf course, especially when you’re trying to beat these guys.”

Warm weather at Royal Queensland saw bumper galleries for Thursday's round one of the PGA Championship. PHOTO: PGA of Australia

One of those was Lee who smoked around in 7-under 64 and topped the leader board until Joel Moscatel of Spain equalled Jed Morgan's tournament record with 8-under 63. 

“It was awesome to have such a big crowd at six o’clock in the morning,” Lee said. “I’m happy they came and supported us.

“It’s the biggest crowd I’ve got all year."

Scott, meanwhile, said he didn’t notice the gallery numbers.

“I think it was too early for them to come out.

“And I don’t blame them,” Scott said.