[PHOTO: Alex Slitz]
It’s funny how a golfer has his best grasp on his game when he lets go.
Rafael Campos and his wife Stephanie welcomed their first child, a daughter, on Monday, and after Campos got his family home on Wednesday, he had just enough time to hold his baby girl Paola before catching a flight from Puerto Rico to Bermuda. He got in on Thursday morning about 90 minutes before his tee-time, and despite no preparation he felt he might have a good week in the penultimate PGA Tour event of the season, the Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
That seemed strange considering that Campos had missed the cut in 13 of his past 14 starts and stood 147th in the FedEx Cup points standings, well outside the top 125 cut-off for retaining his exempt status. But while having renewed determination to play well, Campos also admitted that he cared less about the result.
“At the end of the day,” he said after seizing a share of the third-round lead with 62, “if I end up losing my job… I’ve got a beautiful daughter and beautiful wife back home just waiting for me to hopefully give ’em a hug.”
Fortunately, he didn’t lose his job. In fact, he didn’t lose at all.
Exhibiting all-around solid play and significant resolve, Campos broke away from the field on the back nine at breezy Port Royal Golf Course today and hung on for his first career tour title. A three-under 68 was good enough to beat third-round co-leader Andrew Novak by three shots with a 19-under 265 total. Novak bogeyed the last in a closing 71.
"I can't believe this is happening to me." 🥹@RafaCamposGolf was overcome with emotion after his first TOUR win @Bermuda_Champ. pic.twitter.com/GlKXjhyzqb
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) November 17, 2024
When he capped the win with a three-foot par save, Campos gave a small fist pump and then sobbed heavily as he hugged his caddie. He then received a champagne shower from several fellow players, including recent winner Nico Echavarria of Colombia.
“It’s been an unbelievable week, best week of my life,” Campos told Golf Channel as tears of happiness continued to flow. “After such a bad year, to have things kind of go my way, everything together at once, I’m just so happy and grateful to have the support I do. My team, my coaches, my sponsors, my family. My caddie did a great job today. I just can’t believe this is actually happening to me after such a year. I’m just grateful to be able to call myself a PGA Tour champion. It’s something I’ve dreamt about all my life.”
Six days after Paola was born – Stephanie had the birth induced – Campos received the biggest payola of his career, $US1.242 million, or slightly more than half his earnings before becoming a father.
“It’s been a surreal week,” said Campos, a man of deep faith. “I’ve been praying every day the last year, you know, hoping to get a good week, hoping to just give myself some security and today or this week, I just knew he was with me, I knew my family was with me. When I won in 2019 in Abaco [on the Korn Ferry Tour], I remember feeling like very calm and there are a couple sun rays that I would look at, like that’s kind of weird, I know he’s there. And today it happened, you know.
“I didn’t look at the leaderboard all the way till I got to the 18th green, and I kind of had a feeling that it was meant to be.”
Campos seized control of the tournament at the turn. He bogeyed the par-4 ninth to drop back into a tie with Novak at 17-under-par, but then responded with birdie putts of 15 and 12 feet at holes 10 and 11, respectively. Novak, meanwhile, missed an eight-footer for birdie at the 10th and then three-putted the 11th, his second putt coming from about 30 inches, to suddenly fall three behind.
Campos survived a hiccup at the 14th hole when he appeared to momentarily lose consciousness on a putt that was barely a foot. After missing a birdie try from about 20 feet, he walked up to tap it in and pulled it to where it lipped out off the left edge. He buckled down from there, however, and finished off an emotional week. He joined the late Chi Chi Rodriguez as Puerto Ricans to win on tour, and he became the fourth straight international player to win in Bermuda, after Camilo Villegas, Lucas Herbert and Seamus Power.
Justin Lower, leader after each of the first two rounds and coming off a career-best T-2 finish at last week’s World Wide Technology Championship, birdied three of his first seven holes and jumped from one behind Campos and Novak to a two-stroke lead. His bid for his first win unravelled with a four-putt double bogey at the par-3 eighth. He ended T-5.
Campos, who returned to the PGA Tour this year after earning the 30th and final spot from last year’s Korn Ferry Tour list, moved up to 80th in the FedEx Cup points standings and earned a berth in the Masters, the Players Championship and the season-opening Sentry tournament.
With one week remaining, there was plenty of other jostling among the Bermuda finishers. Echavarria, after finishing T-29 moved up two crucial spots from 61st to 59th, and if he remains in the top 60 after this week’s RSM Classic, he will earn spots in the year’s first two signature events, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational. Kevin Yu, who missed the cut, dropped from 60th to 61st.
In addition to Campos, Sam Ryder (122nd) and Wesley Bryan (125th) moved into the top 125. Henrik Norlander, Daniel Berger and Hayden Springer fell below that crucial standard.
Down by two on Sunday, Rafael Campos used a crucial six-hole stretch to help clinch the @Bermuda_Champ @FDSportsbook pic.twitter.com/KLn2BBFid1
— Golfbet (@Golfbet) November 17, 2024
Campos is the only one who can relax, having earned a two-year tour exemption with the victory. It’s been quite a journey since he turned pro in 2011. Of course he was in tears. And he promised more were coming.
“I think it’s more relief right now,” he said of his emotions after winning in his 80th tour start. “I got a chance to speak to my entire family, they all FaceTimed me in a group chat. I couldn’t even speak like when I was talking to them. I know once I get back to the hotel there’s going to be a lot of crying once I personally start talking to them.
“Just extremely grateful to have had this opportunity and especially such an unbelievable week with my daughter,” Campos added. “I’m just extremely happy to be a champion and not have to worry about where I’m going to be playing the next couple of years. That was something that was bothering me for the past like six months and ironic how everything just flipped and fortunately I can just go out and enjoy and play golf.”
