The pre-tournament favourite recovered from a bogey on his third hole to rack up five straight birdies to finish his opening nine.
Smith reached the turn at four under and shared the lead with French-born Armenian Jean Bekirian. Â
Smith arrived on the sand-belt with a burning desire to win a maiden Australian Open crown, a coveted national championship that has eluded the former world No.2 for a decade.
But the 2022 British Open champion blasted officials after Wednesday's pro-am at Kingston Heath for softening up the famed sand-belt courses and setting up an "American style" layout this week.
Minjee Lee (r) came close last year but lost out to Ashleigh Buhai (l) at the Australian Open. (Dan Himbrechts/AAP PHOTOS)
It didn't matter on Thursday, though, as Smith took out his frustrations on the neighbouring Victoria layout.
After starting on the 10th tee, Smith slumped to one over through three holes before reeling off birdies on the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th holes.
While Smith ran hot, fellow former world No.2 Minjee Lee's hopes of landing a first Australian Open women's crown suffered an early setback.
Playing in the group behind Smith in the dual-gender event, Lee fell to three over early, before collecting consecutive birdies to reach the turn at one over par.
The two-time major winner was six shots behind fellow Australian Su Oh.
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