BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Former British Open champion Cameron Smith and Jason Day, who is back Down Under for the first time in seven years, shot 4-under 67s Thursday and were two strokes off the lead after the first round of the Australian PGA at Royal Queensland.
Smith, the 2022 British Open champion at St. Andrews, 2015 PGA Championship winner Day and fellow Australian Marc Leishman were in a group behind first-round leader Elvis Smylie, the son of former Australian tennis pro Liz Smylie. He shot 65.
Joel Girrbach of Switzerland, France's Victor Perez, Cristobal del Solar of Chile and Australian Matias Sanchez were tied for second with 66s, a stroke behind Smylie.
Min Woo Lee, who won last year's tournament at Royal Queensland, shot 68 and was three strokes off the lead. Lee, Day and Smith were in the same early group Thursday in the joint PGA Tour of Australasia and the inaugural European Tour event for the 2025 season.
The 22-year-old Smylie, who is from the nearby Gold Coast, said the tournament was like a “home game” for him.
“It’s only an hour’s drive,” Smylie said. “I’ve played a lot of golf here. I’m quite familiar with the course and every part of my game’s really good at the moment. I’m really comfortable with what I’m doing.”
The 37-year-old Day said he enjoyed being in the featured group Thursday. He hadn't played in his home country since the 2017 Australian Open and he has not played the Australian PGA since 2011.
“Obviously Cammy’s (Smith) is a big draw here. It’s nice to get out there and watch Min,” Day said. "It’s unbelievable how far that guy hits it. He seems like he’s got a lot of control. He just had just a couple of bad breaks and obviously some swings out there, but overall, he’s playing pretty solid.
“It’s always nervous to come back and try and defend,” Day added. “And then when you’re in the marquee group, there’s a lot of people watching and it’s always a little bit more nerve-wracking coming back as a defending champ.”
Day said Smith was feeling under the weather and Smith later confirmed the diagnosis.
“I think Tuesday out here in the rain and then Wednesday in the rain, a couple of big weeks and stuff, I think it just got to me a little bit,” Smith said. "Just a little bit of a head cold thing . . . I'll be right, I’ll live.”
Australian Geoff Ogilvy, the 2006 U.S. Open champion who now spends most of his time designing golf courses, shot 69.
Lee (ranked No. 48) and Day (No. 31) are the only players from the top 50 in the world in the field. Smith is playing his third straight week in PGA Tour of Australasia tournaments — he closed with 74 last week to lose a two-shot lead at the New South Wales Open, finishing tied for second and three strokes behind winner and fellow LIV player Lucas Herbert.
Many of the same players will travel to Melbourne next week for the Australian Open, also on the European Tour, which is being played concurrently with the Women's Australian Open at famed sandbelt courses Kingston Heath and Victoria.
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Min Woo Lee of Australia, left, Justin Rose of England, centre, and Nicolai Hojgaard of Denmark prepare to plays their second shot at the 3rd hole during the second round of Abu Dhabi Golf Championship in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Friday, Nov. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea and Russia reached a new agreement for expanding economic cooperation following high-level talks in Pyongyang this week, the North’s state media said Thursday, as they continue to align in the face of their confrontations with Washington.
North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency didn’t elaborate on the details of the agreement signed Wednesday between its senior trade officials and a Russian delegation led by Alexandr Kozlov, the country’s minister of natural resources and ecology. The Russian news agency Tass on Tuesday said officials following an earlier round of talks agreed to increase the number of charter flights between the countries to promote tourism.
Kozlov, who arrived in North Korea on Sunday, met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his top economic official, Premier Kim Tok Hun, before returning home on Wednesday, KCNA said. During Kozlov’s visit, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s gifted Pyongyang’s Central Zoo with more than 70 animals, including lions, bears and several species of birds, according to Tass, in another display of the countries’ growing ties.
Kim Jong Un in recent months has prioritized relations with Moscow as he attempts to break out of international isolation and strengthen his footing, actively supporting Putin’s war on Ukraine while portraying the North as a player in a united front against Washington.
Kim has yet to directly acknowledge that he has been providing military equipment and troops to Russia to support its fighting against Ukraine. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing on Wednesday that an estimated 11,000 North Korean soldiers in late October were moved to Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops seized parts of its territory this year, following their training in Russia’s northeast.
The spy agency believes the North Korean soldiers were assigned to Russia’s marine and airborne forces units and some of them have already begun fighting alongside the Russians on the frontlines, said Lee Seong Kweun, a lawmaker who attended the meeting. U.S., South Korean and Ukrainian officials have claimed that the North has also been supplying Russia with artillery systems, missiles and other equipment.
North Korea would be possibly getting anywhere between $320 million to $1.3 billion annually from Russia for sending its troops to Ukraine, considering the scale of the dispatch and the level of payments Russia has been providing to foreign mercenaries, according to a recent study by Lim Soo-ho, a South Korean analyst at an NIS-run think tank.
While that would be meaningful income for North Korea’s crippled and heavily sanctioned economy, it could be lower than the money the North earns from illicit coal exports or supplying military equipment to Russia, Lim said. This suggests that North Korea’s troop dispatch is less about money than acquiring key Russian technologies to further advance its nuclear weapons and missile program, which is a major concern in Seoul, Lim said.
Amid the stalemate in larger nuclear negotiations with Washington, Kim has been dialing up pressure on South Korea, abandoning his country’s long-standing goal of inter-Korean reconciliation and verbally threatening to attack the South with nukes if provoked. He has used Russia’s war on Ukraine as a distraction to accelerate the development of his nuclear-armed military, which now has various nuclear-capable systems targeting South Korea and intercontinental ballistic missiles that can potentially reach the U.S. mainland.
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korea’s Foreign Minister of Economic Affairs Yoon Chung-ho sees off Russia’s minister of natural resources and ecology Alexandr Kozlov, left, at Pyongyang International Airport, North Korea, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un pose for a photo during a signing ceremony of the new partnership in Pyongyang, North Korea, on June 19, 2024. (Kristina Kormilitsyna, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Russia's natural resources minister Alexander Kozlov, right, is greeted by Yun Jong Ho, minister of External Economic Relations, as the Russian delegation leave Pyongyang Airport in Pyongyang, on Nov. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin, File)
