Campbell named as Europe’s top man

SEVENTEEN members of the golf writing profession along with a couple of distinguished broadcasters assembled at an exclusive hotel in London yesterday — and to a man voted New Zealander Michael Campbell as the European Tour golfer of the year for 2005.

The decision will have come as a disappointment to Colin Montgomerie who has come back from the depths of despair to win the Tour’s order of merit for the eighth time.

But Campbell shaded it on the strength of his triumph in the US Open at Pinehurst in June, while it could be fairly said that Ireland’s Paul McGinley and Padraig Harrington shared the mythical “bronze medal.”