Campbell rollercoaster back on track

LESS than two months ago Michael Campbell stood 417th in the world and it looked as if we might be witnessing the decline and fall of a once great player.

Good enough to have been ranked 12th in May 2001, Campbell had just missed 15 of his last 18 halfway cuts and the game that had pushed Tiger Woods into second place at the 2005 US Open appeared a distant memory.

Major winners do not always bounce back after going into a slump – Ian Baker-Finch eventually gave up trying and David Duval is still a shadow of his former self – but the 39-year-old New Zealander did not panic.

Why? Because his whole career has been an astonishing mixture of highs and low.

And sure enough Campbell has put the pieces back together and with four top 10s in his last five starts, the last two of them third place finishes, he is back up to 191st on the world rankings and all things seem possible again.

Lee Westwood played three of the four rounds with him in the British Masters at The Belfry last week. They were tied for the lead with 18 holes to go, three clear of the field, but Spain’s Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano overtook Campbell, caught Westwood and beat him in a play-off.

“Cambo’s a bit strange in that he either wins the US Open or goes missing for three or four months,” said Westwood.

“But he is good when he gets in the mix of things. He has been looking like winning a tournament recently.”

So what does Campbell himself make of it all?

“I have actually accepted who I am as a golfer,” he said. “I tried to change things in myself and change my golf swing to be more consistent, to be more like Pádraig (Harrington) and those guys, but that is just not me.

“So I thought that I should just get out there and play golf like I normally do. Okay I am going to miss cuts, but I am going to win tournaments as well.

“That’s what I have done over the last three months, just worked on my basic routines and my rhythm – two simple things. I just need to keep going through those processes.

It was at The Open in July that Campbell started seeing light at the end of this particular tunnel.

He had missed his last six cuts heading to Birkdale, but said: “It’s like water off a duck’s back to me. Ever since I was a schoolboy I’ve one through big ups and downs. I know other players in my position would be panicking and might even give up, but with me it can turn right round in one week. That’s how it’s always been.”

Campbell finished third in the 1995 Open at St Andrews – he led with a round to go and was only a shot away from the play-off between John Daly and Costantino Rocca – but just two years later was back at the European Tour qualifying school.

Three wins in 2000, however, helped him to finish fourth on the Order of Merit and after going through another nightmare time he re-emerged to capture the 2003 Irish Open and then two years later his major title.

That in itself summed up the Maori’s career. He only just made it through the qualifier at Walton Heath, but the following week pushed Tiger Woods into second place at Pinehurst.