Campbell happy to see light at end of dark '07 tunnel  PGATOUR.COM Contributor VERONA, N.Y. -- Chad Campbell is becoming nervous. Finally.  Chad Campbell won the 2005 TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola. (WireImage)
It's been much too long since the 33-year-old Texan could claim he stepped up to hit a round's opening shot and felt even the teensiest case of sweaty palms or rumbling tummy. "There have been times this year that I've gone through the motions," he admits without hesitation. "That's not the way I like to play. I like to be a little bit nervous on the first tee box. It just makes me concentrate harder." Campbell's looking forward to a healthy case of the jumpies prior to Saturday's third round of the Turning Stone Resort Championship. He won't be tied for the lead as he was after the first 18 holes because a par 72 on Friday left him at 7-under 135 for the week and on the cusp of the top 20. But considering that Campbell's game barely registered a heartbeat for much of this season he's pleased with the opportunity. Campbell is 20 months removed from winning the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, a to-hell-and-trying-to-get-back stretch that would churn any cast-iron gut. To the naked eye his golf swing is uncannily similar to that week. But he arrived at Atunyote Golf Club at Turning Stone Resort tied for 184th in the TOUR's All-Around stat, ranked ahead of only three guys. "I've had stretches of a month or two where I played bad, but this is the first time I've struggled for a whole year," he says. "It's been tough. Maybe I tried a few too many things with my swing but now I'm just trying to hit it and get back to what I used to do." What he used to do was hit the ball in the fairway, knock it on the green and roll home the putt -- to the extent that he was widely touted as golf's next big thing. He did it at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, where the Rebels placed second in the 1996 NCAA Championships with a lineup that also included Chris Riley and Ted Oh. He did it for three years as the top money winner on the regional Hooters Tour, winning eight of the 16 tournaments he entered in 2000. And he did it throughout 2003, only his second full season on TOUR, when he was runner-up to Shaun Micheel in the PGA Championship in nearby Rochester and became the first to make THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola his breakthrough triumph. Campbell finished that 2003 season ranked 57th in fairways and fourth in greens, succeeding in each at a rate north of 70 percent. This year he's struggling to stay above 60 percent in both. "I think, in particular, not driving the ball -- if you're not getting it in play you can't get anything done, especially with courses with really deep rough that we play," Campbell explains. "In turn you can't get any momentum going, you play a couple of good holes in a row and start missing a few fairways and your patience starts to wear a little thin." The first two rounds at Turning Stone were prime examples. He hit 11 fairways and 14 greens Thursday, needed only 25 putts and shared the lead with Jeff Gove at 65. Friday, he missed half of the 14 generous fairways and missed six greens, then bobbled a fistful of putts inside 16 feet that could have dramatically changed the bottom line on his card. There were bright spots in the second round, though, and these days Campbell concentrates on those snippets. He made four bogeys but followed two with birdies. "It didn't really show today but I'm starting to drive the ball better, and give myself a few more opportunities, hit the irons better and putt a little better," he says. "A little bit of everything." In truth, Campbell went into the ditch in June 2006, missing three consecutive cuts in a trio of high-intensity events (The Barclays, the U.S. Open and Western Open). He never cracked the top 10 the rest of the year. This year he took fourth in the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship -- the temptation is to use the word "miraculously" somewhere in the sentence -- then tied for 13th at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship and 15th at the Travelers Championship. But it wasn't until last month that he began stringing together successes. He shot a second-round 68 at Southern Hills Country Club to make the cut at the PGA Championship, then came back the next week with four rounds of par or better at the Wyndham Championship. He didn't amass enough points in the first two weeks of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup to advance to the BMW Championship, so he resurfaced at Turning Stone after two weeks off. Coincidentally, that's just the amount of time he likes to take during a break. At least he's not coping with struggling while trying to keep his card for 2008, having an exemption through next season thanks to the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic win. And he's not spending too much time obsessing about his rank on the money list (85th with $977,802 coming into the week) or the Official World Ranking (90th, after ranking 27th in March). "I haven't looked at the rankings in the last month or so," Campbell says. "Once I went out of the top 50 (after missing the cut at AT&T National in early July) I didn't even pay attention to them. Now I know what I have to do to get back in to the top 50: win golf tournaments and have a bunch of top 10s." These days he's a bit nervous and experiencing some fun on the course. Campbell is eager to play four consecutive weeks, through Las Vegas, then re-assess his standing. If he's shooting some low numbers he might duck back out for a few more events in the Fall Finish. Otherwise he might just say bye-bye to 2007 and look forward to next year. "Playing bad gets old in a hurry," he says. "When you're playing good none of that stuff bothers you. I'm getting back there. I have a lot of support, a lot of people rooting for me. I'll be all right." Don't you worry about that. |
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