One of those golf journeymen who toil and toil without stopping, and then, one week when no one expects it, lift their long-awaited trophy. Unexpected, but no less deserved for it.
This is the story of Brian Campbell, a golfer who represents another of those beautiful stories that the PGA Tour gives us. Aldrich Pogieter, his great rival this weekend, is barely twenty years old and everything suggests that he will be in contention to win on numerous occasions, but the American’s future was not so clear. It could have been the train of his life. He got on and held on tight.
As soon as he won the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld, Campbell, visibly moved, recalled the injuries that have plagued him in recent years and a quadruple bogey that almost made him retire. He acknowledges that two seasons ago a damn par 3 almost buried his chances of passing the second stage of the School and left him with almost no playing options. “I assumed I was out, but somehow I managed to recover and the next day I was able to get into the fight and reach the final stage of the School. It’s crazy how quickly things can change. Now I am a winner on the PGA Tour.”
Ten seasons since he won the low amateur at the US Open in 2015. Just two weeks later he turned professional precisely in Mexico. Who would have told him that it would take him more than nine years to achieve a victory and that he would do it in the same place where he debuted.
Injuries have also almost forced him to retire from golf. For two and a half years, Campbell suffered severe pain on the left side of his body that made it difficult to hold a club, train, and maintain a game suitable for the highest level. It started with a leg injury, he said, which moved to his neck and finally to his thumb.
“Last year I considered that maybe I had to stop playing golf,” Campbell said last summer. “There came a point in my life where it hurt to hit a club. I had conditional status, I was playing Monday qualifiers, and I was scared to think about what would come next when you’ve only played golf your whole life. ‘Maybe I won’t play golf next year, what else am I going to do?'”. The uncertain outlook seems to have cleared up quite a bit for the next two seasons. The emotion of his wife had a lot of history behind it.
A true story of overcoming adversity. Ironically, the shortest hitter on the entire circuit has won on a course that usually requires hitting bombs and is more suited to big hitters. He played for the title against the circuit’s biggest bomber, the very young Pogieter.
Focusing on the decisive day, it was by no means an easy victory. The Florida native admits he had a really tough time: “I was very nervous all day. I thought several times I was going to throw up.” He managed to find calm and that moment that every champion has at some point during the week. In Campbell’s case, luck smiled on him with a laugh.
On the second playoff hole, the ball opened up too much, and when it seemed like the ball was going to disappear, it hit a tree, bounced on a path, and returned to the centre of the fairway. A slightly short shot, but given how the ball came off the tee, it was a real fluke. He has no problem admitting it: “I was very lucky that it hit the tree and the subsequent bounce, the ball stayed in play and in a perfect position. My intention was not to play there, obviously.” With humour and two beers, Brian and his caddie went to toast with the tree in gratitude for its invaluable help. It’s only right to be grateful.
