Is Chad Campbell the next superstar?

BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2003 PGA Tour Championship | Wrap | 10 Nov 2003

The win by Chad Campbell in today’s USPGA Tour Championship highlights a remarkable rise in the career of a young man destined to go on to even greater heights in professional golf.

When he graduated from the Buy.Com Tour late in 2001 via the “Battlefield Promotion”, where a player winning three events in any one season gets automatic promotion to the USPGA Tour, he made immediate impact at the higher level with a runner up position at the Southern Farm Bureau Classic. He had been successful on the Hooters Tour prior to that, where he had been Rookie of the Year in 1997 and the Player of the Year in 1998, 1999 and 2000. He dominated in 2000 winning eight of the first sixteen events and then had that immediate success when he advanced to the Buy.Com Tour.

On the USPGA Tour in 2002 he was solid, if not spectacular, with two top tens, one of those again at the Southern Farm Bureau event and $US825,000 in prizemoney. This year, however, he has blossomed into a player of almost unlimited potential. He had consecutive runner up finishes in Tuscon and at the Honda early in the year but even better was to come at the PGA Championship, where he duelled with Shaun Micheel down the stretch, only to succumb to the Micheel’s magnificent approach at the 72nd hole.

Here in Houston as a result of his 9th position on the money list, he turned the Singh / Woods talk on its head with a third round 61 which surpassed any other round during the event by five shots. He had broken clear of the best players in the world and his opening nine of 31 on day four suggested that he was not about to let this one go. This would be his first win on the USPGA Tour but the manner in which he dispatched such a high quality field, highlights a young man who will have many more such wins to his name.

Campbell stumbled a little coming in today but he had enough in reserve to extinguish any challenge to the lead he had established and in the end victory was his by three shots over Charles Howell. Howell continued his solid late season form, although this time he was able to finish off a good start. In recent events he has been starting well only to slip over the final rounds but on a tough golf course he did well, his last hole birdie breaking him clear of Retief Goosen who also finished with three birdies in his last four holes.

The much vaunted battle between Vijay Singh and Tiger Woods for the money list title never really eventuated and with Woods needing to win the event and for Singh to finish outside the top three, the writing was on the wall early for Singh to survive at the top. He wins the money list title for the first time and becomes the first since David Duval in 1998 to break Tiger’s stranglehold on that title. For the record Singh was fifth here and Woods 26th.

Robert Allenby was 13th with Stuart Appleby never really in the hunt in 27th place.