Campbell caps a late-season turnaround with a big victory Sep. 30, 2007 Print this page By Dave Lagarde PGATOUR.com Correspondent MADISON, Miss. -- Ordinarily, just about anyone would look at a 1040 that proclaimed $991,000 in earnings and figure its owner had a pretty good year at his day job. Chad Campbell Chad Campbell donned a chef's jacket as he accepted his Viking Classic trophy on Sunday. (Solis/AP) INSIDE THE NUMBERS CAMPBELL'S FINAL STATS Category Total Rank Eagles 0 N/A Birdies 22 1 Pars 43 T61 Bogeys 5 T67 Double Bogeys 2 T3 Other 0 N/A Driving Accuracy 67.9% T27 Driving Distance 294.0 yds. 21 Greens in Regulation 80.6% 1 Putts per Round 29.0 T49 Putts per GIR 1.672 6 Sand Saves 33.3% T51 • Chad Campbell's Player Page But you likely would have gotten a heated argument from Chad Campbell before the Viking Classic began Thursday. Those six figures above represented Campbell's earnings in 2007 on the PGA TOUR. By everyman's standards, that's a whole lot of money. Campbell's standards -- he has never earned less than $2,264,985 in his previous four seasons -- are a whole different story. See, Campbell, heretofore recognized as a ball-striking machine, was experiencing some serious technical difficulty with his golf game before he located some soothing Southern comfort on his first trip to the Magnolia State in five years. Matter of fact, his season -- 25 starts, one top 10 and four top 25s -- was downright unacceptable when Campbell stuck his peg in the ground Thursday afternoon. Four days, 72 holes and one tournament title later -- Campbell's fourth -- he's got to admit it's getting better. "It's a great feeling to be back in the winner's circle,'' said Campbell, who broke away from a jam-packed leader board with a pair of clutch birdies on the 16th and 17th holes and scored a one-shot victory over TOUR rookie Johnson Wagner, while Boo Weekley and Bill Haas tied for third, another stroke back. There certainly was satisfaction in Campbell's voice -- and no small measure of relief as well. Understandable considering the professional downturn he was experiencing. Campbell destroyed fields on the Hooters Tour in 2000, winning three in a row and eight of 16 events. He earned a performance promotion to The Big Show after three wins on the Nationwide Tour in 2001. Then he wasted little time in establishing himself as a force to be reckoned with at golf's highest level. Campbell won $825,474 in his rookie season in 2002 and broke loose the following year, earning $3,912,064 to finish seventh on the money list while winning THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola and finishing second in the PGA Championship. In the middle of his breakout season, "Sports Illustrated'' dubbed the quiet west Texas native him as The Next Big Thing in golf. "It was great exposure for me,'' he said, "but that's about all I thought of it.'' Finishes of 24th, 20th and 14th followed as Campbell made two Ryder Cup teams and established himself as one of the PGA TOUR's shining lights. That's what made 2007 so frustrating and difficult to explain. "It's a tough game,'' became Campbell's stock response. But try as he might to unravel the mystery, he never could put his finger on why he couldn't control his ball flight or why he had so much trouble breaking 70 (just 16 rounds prior to the Viking). "I wasn't doing anything very well,'' he conceded. "I just never put anything together that would hold up for 18 holes. I honestly didn't know what I was doing, but I knew I wanted to get back to the way I used to do it.'' As far as Campbell was concerned, there was only one way out. He went to work, putting in hours on the range trying to feel his old swing. "Once you think you got it, you know, it goes away from you,'' he said. "So you've just got to keep working hard. It's not like I stopped working hard. It's just I don't know what has happened. This year has just kind of been a little bit of an off year. And I've been working probably extra hard. It's tough when you're not playing up to your expectations and my expectations for me exceed everyone else's.'' Campbell got a hint that he was turning the corner last week at the Turning Stone Resort Championship. Although he faded to a tie for 54th, he shot 65 in the first round to share the 16-hole lead. "That was huge,'' he said. "It told me I could shoot low numbers again.'' The biggest boost was to his confidence. And it allowed for a significant attitude adjustment, something that Campbell knows helped him at Annandale Country Club, a place where he his memories are sweet. "You seem to get bad breaks when you have a bad attitude,'' said Campbell, who did for about four months as he searched for answers for the holes in his game. So what happened on the weekend? A player with a good attitude got a great break on the fifth hole in the third round when he was rolling toward an 8-under-par 64 that put him at 10 under and within striking distance of 54-hole leader David Branshaw, who was at 13 under. Campbell hit his drive on the par 5 way right. But when he found it, his ball had come to rest in a spot where he had an open shot to the green with a 5-iron. He made birdie. "If I had a bad attitude, that drive goes out of bounds and the next one winds up under a tree,'' he said. There were two other things working in Campbell's favor this week. He put a new Nike driver in play and called on those pleasant memories of Annandale -- he finished second and fourth in 2001 and 2002 -- to put him at ease. "I have fun on the golf course when I have confidence in the driver,'' he said. "It got so bad this year that I was aiming down the middle because I didn't know if it was going left or right.'' As for the Jack Nicklaus-designed Annandale layout, Campbell said it suits his eye. "There are a lot of good memories for me here,'' he said. And like his bank account, they got a whole lot better this week.