Players Championship: Cameron Smith pins Anirban Lahiri and Paul Casey to win TPC Sawgrass

Cameron Smith won the biggest win of his Players Championship career, including a thunderstorm delay and near-freezing temperatures, which ended in warm sunshine at TPC Sawgrass on Monday. He became the fifth Australian to win a PGA Tour event, taking golf's biggest prize of $3.6 million. 

Smith scored ten doves in six-under 66 and won 13 fewer, one ahead of Florida Indian Anirban Lahiri. England's Paul Casey beat Smith to 69 and finished third with 11 down. "I just played very, very good golf in tough conditions around Sawgrass. I shot a 69 with tapa and a few breakouts I didn't get," said Casey, 44.

"You have to put your hat on Kam, who plays phenomenal golf. He won this tournament. No defeats, he won it, and you have to respect that." It was a great matchup between the pair, with Smith, who lives near Jacksonville and enjoys more support, shooting four birds in a row to escape the field and the fifth coming down his sixth hole to reach the 12th floor.

But the momentum began to shift to par for fourth place when Casey threw in his first shot to get within two as Smith fell. And the lead was scrapped at the par-5 ninth, with Smith scoring a third straight stopper while Casey birdied again as they both started nine-nines lower.

Elsewhere, the pressure came from America's Keegan Bradley, who had four birds from ninth to hit ten under, while Scotland's Russell Knox, also based in Jacksonville, pushed the birds down three of his first four holes to hit nine-under reach before fading. With the fifth and seventh waves.

Third-round leader Anirban Lahiri hit ten down after seven holes, but the double mascots in third to eighth looked like doom for the Indian ranked 322. However, he responded with an eagle on the 11th, only to quickly return to hunting lower on the 11. However, Smith did a different bird run, trying the 10th floor four times to reach the 13th and putting daylight between himself and the field.

Casey held on there, with the Birds on the 11th and 12th to drop to 11th, but his luck ran out at par-5-16. After a terrible drive, his ball landed in a hole, preventing him from going to the green with two men due to a water threat to the right of the green. "It was the best shot I've taken in that hole all week," Casey said. Cameron had met him in the trees, and I thought the door was open. Of course, I want to go green, but there are too many variables and risks.