Sky’s the limit for confident Campbell

LOOKING as laid-back and at ease, Michael Campbell arrived at the K Club ready to challenge for his second Smurfit European Open title in four years over the Palmer North course.

The New Zealander is a good man to party and he’s been doing that much of the time since his exploits at Pinehurst. Now it’s time to get back to business and studying his demeanour yesterday, you would have to conclude that he represents superb value at 22/1 to walk away with the first prize of €577, 816.

“My confidence has skyrocketed. I had a big shindig on Sunday and invited about a hundred people around to my house in Brighton. We had a good time, dance floor, DJ and stuff. Champagne was flowing freely but that was the cut-off time for celebrating. Now it’s back to business.”

Retief Goosen won this event last year after winning the US Open, albeit on the neighbouring Smurfit South course, and now it remains to be seen whether Campbell can do the same.

“I’m not in the right frame of mind today but come tomorrow, yes, I’ll be ready,” he commented. “It was always my dream growing up to hole a putt for a major championship. To achieve a childhood dream is a thing a lot of people can’t do in life.

“The last nine holes gave me a true test. It was either make it or break it as a player, to be honest. If I had a three shot lead playing the last nine and lost I would have been devastated and may not have recovered for a long time. But to actually go out there and have the best players on the planet shooting with all guns blazing towards you and to respond with birdies on 10 and 12, to up and down it on 15 and birdie 17... that was the toughest situation I’ve ever, ever been in.”

Campbell believes his ability to come through all that, will “stand to me in the future, because I now know I can cope with any situation. If I’m leading again with nine holes to go and have a three shot lead with Tiger, Vijay, Ernie or Goosy breathing down my neck, I can still win.”

That, of course, also holds true for this week over a course where he prevailed in 2002. A year later, he was crowned Nissan Irish Open champion so it’s little wonder that he should express his liking for this country. He believes he is a better, fitter golfer than three years ago stressing that “my driving has been spectacular the last two months, pretty straight and averaging just under 300 yards.”

In spite of that, Campbell isn’t very popular with the bookmakers who prefer Retief Goosen at 15/2, Padraig Harrington at 9/1, even Darren Clarke at 16/1 despite not having played competitively for the best part of a month; Clarke admitting that “expectations on the golf course are not overly important with me right now.”

For the purposes of this championship and the Ryder Cup, the nines have been reversed. The first obvious change comes at the short third, where the green has been moved so far to the left that it now eats into the water hazard - a far more difficult proposition. Shades of Pinehurst come in at the short 14th, where the grass to the left of the green has been shaved and the resultant drop-off brings the water hazard into play.

The long 16th may well be The K-Club’s signature hole and here the green has been restructured to make for an even more difficult approach, especially on days when the tee is moved forward to tempt players to have a go with their second shots. A new tee at the 16th (known as Michael’s Favourite) has made this testing par four an even more dangerous proposition, while the 18th has been toughened up by a few bunkers beyond the dogleg which will trap those taking too greedy a line. Clarke reduced the hole to a drive and five iron yesterday but agrees the sand will come into play should it play into the wind.

Like Clarke, Padraig Harrington has his distractions but will surely feed off his great win last week, while there is always the prospect of Paul McGinley, one-time tournament pro here, and Graeme McDowell will come good any week.