PINEHURST, N.C. (AP) -- He used up his 15 minutes of fame.
Or so everyone thought about Michael Campbell.
"I worked really hard for this, ups and downs my whole career,'' he said in the fading light of Sunday evening, half a world away from the nine-hole muni where the New Zealander learned to play golf.
The slim silver U.S. Open trophy he had just wrested away from Tiger Woods was still clutched so close that he could see his reflection in it.
"But it's worth the work,'' he added. "It's just amazing.''
Ten years ago, Campbell was going to be golf's next big thing. He came out of nowhere to grab the third-round lead at the Open Championship, thanks to a miraculous escape from the toughest spot in the toughest bunker on the toughest hole in major championship golf. What Campbell couldn't have known at the time was that singular shot would become a snapshot of the adversity that lay ahead.
Before teeing off the next day, Campbell performed the Haka, a chanting, knee-slapping Maori ritual dance in a brazen challenge to his opponents. Then he went out on the Old Course at St. Andrews in gusts so stiff even the seagulls walked and shot 76. That left him a stroke short of making the playoff eventually won by John Daly. And just as quickly, Campbell went back to nowhere.
His career from that point until this one was more down than up, and never lower than at the end of one of Campbell's infrequent forays on the PGA Tour. At the 2003 Players Championship, his long, uncomplicated swing had become a series of short, herky-jerky motions, hampered by overanalysis.
"I feel like an alien has taken over my body,'' Campbell said back then, and soon after, he retreated to the European Tour.
There were highlights, to be sure, such as the first time he stared down Woods at the Johnnie Walker Classic in Taiwan in 1999. That Campbell managed to hold off Woods again, this time over the tight fairways and treacherous, domed greens at Pinehurst No. 2, might have surprised some people. But not Tiger.
"Look at his career. He was playing real well, then all of a sudden, he lost it,'' Woods said. "He lost his game and had to rebuild it from scratch. He did a fantastic job of coming back, from a person missing cut after cut after cut, to now, a person who's the U.S. Open champion.
"That's a lot of work right there,'' Woods added, "and he should be very proud of it.''
Woods' caddie, Stevie Williams, a Kiwi himself, was even more effusive.
"I think that,'' Williams said, "was the single greatest sports moment in New Zealand history.''
Forget about how long that moment was in coming -- the amazing thing is that it happened at all.
Michael's wing of the Campbell family descends from Sir Logan Campbell, a Scot who emigrated to New Zealand in 1845. His great-great-great-great grandson may have had the pedigree for the game, but he was a gifted athlete who dreamed of playing rugby, the Kiwis' national sport, until his mother decided it was too rough.
For all the prowess Campbell demonstrated at golf at a tender age -- he carried an 11 handicap at age 12, was a ranked amateur by 16, and represented New Zealand in international matches by 18 -- his parents took some convincing that he could make a career of it.
So Campbell went to work after college as a telephone technician. He didn't turn pro until 1993, and didn't really convince anybody he'd made the right choice until that stirring Houdini act from the bunker on the Road Hole at St. Andrews in 1995.
"I came close, you know, 10 years ago. What a place,'' Campbell recalled, his voice softening. "But it wasn't my turn.''
Three years later, fighting a lingering wrist injury, Campbell lost his playing privileges on both the European and Australasian tours. He thought about selling golf balls for a living until a few tournament sponsors came through with invitations that enabled Campbell to keep hitting them instead.
"And'' he said, "it's been a great journey since then.''
Ten victories around the world in the last half-dozen years, but the one that validated the rest was the longest shot of them all. Not because Campbell became the first player since Steve Jones to win the Open after going through qualifying play, but because his handlers had to talk him into qualifying in the first place.
"And I scraped through,'' he said, "just scraped through.''
Those same words could describe so many junctures in Campbell's career. At some of those, he was tempted to grab an ax and chop his clubs in half. At others, he would picture his hero, Ben Hogan, whose quest to reduce a complex game to the simple task of hitting every fairway and every green made him the quintessential Open golfer. So much that when the folks at the USGA searched out someone to model their course setup on, Hogan was their man.
"I loved the way he moved. I've read all his books,'' Campbell said. "I've got them at home. I admire his work ethic, the way he worked so hard.''
And that was who Campbell sought to channel one more time, turning the trophy around in his hands. He went past the names of Jones and Vardon, Nickaus and Palmer and stopped at Hogan.
"I can see his name four times,'' Campbell said. "And now mine's going down there somewhere.''
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
