– Brian Campbell (-20) and Aldrich Potgieter (-20) are playing the second playoff hole for the win at the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld. Potgieter has hit a good drive of nearly three hundred metres to the fairway on the 18th hole at Vidanta Vallarta, a par 5. And Campbell…
Campbell hits probably the worst drive of the week, coming up short and veering too far right, but the ball, after crossing the point of no return, bounces off a tree, then skips on a path and rests gently in a rather bare patch of rough. It has barely advanced more than two hundred metres and still has about 290 metres to the flag, but at least he’s still in the game. And from there, as fate would have it, he will make a textbook birdie, with a second shot to position and an excellent wedge that leaves the ball less than a metre from the hole, securing his first victory on the PGA Tour, once his rival, the very young South African, misses his birdie putt from just under two metres.
– Before all this happened, a rather strange fourth round was experienced at Vidanta Vallarta. At least as far as the leading group was concerned, where the three main contenders for the win, Potgieter, Campbell, and Stephan Jaeger (-17), were playing, as only Campbell managed to play under par and just barely (a scorecard of 70 strokes on this par 71). The course remained the same one where multiple and varied excellent scores had been seen each day, with wide fairways and rather short rough; and the playing conditions were not terrible by any means, even though the wind was blowing. But there was no way: none of them could find the key. The one who did, initially, was Aaron Rai (-18), who climbed to the provisional lead with a five-under-par score for the first six holes, but then, over the last twelve holes of the course, would sign a surprising one-over-par score. Surprising, mainly, because of how well he had been playing. At times it seemed that it wasn’t a tournament someone was going to WIN, in all caps, but rather about who wouldn’t lose it. It was Campbell.
– It seems evident that Potgieter will be one of those players who regularly contends for victory on Sundays in the future. Mainly because that future is already a fierce present: in his first season on the PGA Tour, he has already been at the top twice after 54 holes (Farmers and Mexico) and, for now, the least important thing is that, at just twenty years old, he hasn’t managed to finish the job. He has everything to succeed. He is a potential star. Or maybe he doesn’t have it all yet…
– It seems that, in moments of extreme pressure, his short game around the green suffers greatly. It’s the area of his game where pressure truly affects him. It was seen today, just as it was seen on Sunday at the Farmers, and, let’s not forget, just as it was seen in the fourth round of the Nedbank, in Sun City, a few months ago, where he finished in second place. In the end, these are just details. Important ones, true, but nothing that seems abnormal for a player of his trajectory and experience, because his attitude on the course and his way of accepting mistakes seem excellent.
– You never know, and it’s very true that a win of this magnitude can definitively transform a player, but it’s much harder to imagine Brian Campbell contending for victory several times each season. Until now, he had been more of a Korn Ferry Tour player than anything else, although it was precisely through this circuit that he earned his playing rights on the PGA Tour last year. He doesn’t seem destined for great battles, but only time will tell, and certainly, if anything, he has demonstrated this week on Mexican soil that he has finally been able to fully exploit his strengths. He is very short off the tee, but he uses very efficient fairway woods and is very tidy on and around the greens. A teammate of Thomas Detry at the University of Illinois, both have just won for the first time in the top division of world golf, although the Belgian is also expected to achieve greater success.
– José Luis Ballester (-12) has closed an excellent week with a final round of 65 strokes, the best score of the day. A warning to competitors of what he is capable of? It can be seen that way. The young Spaniard pumped his fist after sinking a final putt to save par on the 9th hole, the last of his final round, and it was well deserved, after closing an outstanding Sunday performance in which, finally, the flashes became consistent and, among other things, he was very sharp in recoveries around the greens to always keep the score rising.
