Jorge Campillo fell on the ninth playoff hole against Julien Guerrier. The disappointment was evident and deep. There was little consolation for the Extremaduran. Only his little Carmen managed to bring a smile to his face in the moments afterwards. It’s time to digest this bitter pill at the Estrella Damm Andalucía Masters. It’s not just losing on the ninth playoff hole, equalling the historical record of the DP World Tour, but how it happened.
The worst feeling for the golfer from Norba is that he is clear he did more than Guerrier to win the playoff. “Except for the first and last playoff holes, I think I played better than him. He also had quite a bit of luck at certain key moments. It must be the luck of the champion, as they say,” he admitted bitterly.
He had a couple of putts in a row from about three metres where he could have won the tournament. It was a penalty. All or nothing. After a few minutes, Jorge thought it wasn’t an execution error. “I hit it the way I wanted, but it broke more than we thought. This is golf,” he explained.
It’s Campillo’s eighth runner-up finish on the DP World Tour, where he already has three victories. His previous runner-up finish was last year in Qatar, when he also fell in the playoff, this time on a single hole, against Sami Valimaki. Similarly, it equals his best result in a tournament in Spain on the European Tour. He was already second in the Mallorca Golf Open in 2021. Third time’s the charm, the Extremaduran player thinks confidently.
Beyond the logical disappointment of the outcome, Campillo achieves important things with this second place that should be highlighted. It’s his third top 10 of the season on the DP World Tour, the 51st of his career, he will return to the world’s top 100 three years later, he is in the fight for the top six spots in the Ryder Cup and also gains positions in the race for one of the ten PGA Tour cards. Not bad at all considering that for the first time in his career he has alternated the PGA Tour with the DP World Tour, a real grind of tournaments (he will finish the year with 32, equalling his all-time record) and travel.
