Australian No.1 Cameron Smith is well placed after a first-round 69 at the Players Championship at Florida's TPC Sawgrass.

Cameron Smith rued his errant ball striking despite starting promisingly with a three-under-par 69 at The Players Championship.

Australia's world No.10 is sitting in a tie for 11th, three strokes behind co-leaders Tommy Fleetwood and Tom Hoge, after a weather-disrupted opening day at TPC Sawgrass in Florida.

"It was pretty scrappy off the tee, to be honest. I holed a lot of good par putts and felt really good with the putter," Smith said after mixing five birdies with just one bogey.

An overnight deluge delayed the start of play by an hour before storms forced another four-hour stoppage midway through Smith's round.

"It was quite boring, to be honest," he said.

"I just sat down with my mum and my sister and my girlfriend and we just had some lunch and had a chat and didn't really do much.

"It was good to get out this afternoon. It was good conditions and it would have been nice to have a couple more birdies."

Residing in nearby Jacksonville Beach, Smith often practises at TPC Sawgrass and admits he has previously found it difficult to focus sufficiently at the $US20 million event regarded as golf's unofficial fifth major.

"I don't know, I've found it hard in recent years to really treat it like a tournament," he said.

"I feel like I'm just coming out here just to practice. That's normally what I do. It's usually pretty cruisy around here.

"I have a chat to the boys out the back on the greens-keeping team and have a laugh at the boys back there, as well.

"It's all fun and games most of the time. I find it hard to switch on so I've made it a point this year to act as though I'm at a tournament."

At least Smith managed to finish his round.

Most other Australians will have to return for a monster day on Friday.

Course specialist Jason Day, who has played TPC Sawgrass in a tour-best 36 under par since winning in 2016, only managed four holes.

But the former world No.1 birdied two of them to be two under when play was suspended.

Cam Davis, at one under, and Marc Leishman and Lucas Herbert, both even par, were also only through a few holes each.

But Adam Scott, another former Players champion, and Matt Jones Jones will struggle to make the halfway cut.

Scott dumped two tee shots into the water off the 18th tee and took a quadruple bogey on his way to a six-over 78, with Jones carding a 79.