By LOUISA CLEAVE
Michael Campbell did not tell his school mates he had taken up golf. It was not a particularly "cool" thing to do when you were a 12-year-old growing up in Titahi Bay, Wellington.
Now it is no secret Campbell is New Zealand's top golfer, and he intends to become
our "most successful player that has ever lived," he says in the documentary Michael Campbell, The Summer of Glory (Sky Sport, 8 pm).
The documentary by Uplink Sport, the makers of the Golf Show which returns to Sky Sport next week, is a revealing look at the winner of this year's New Zealand Open.
Presented by Phillip Leishman, a friend of Campbell, it delves for the first time into a run-in between Campbell and present world No 2 golfer David Duval at the Eisenhower Trophy event in 1992.
"He knew his team were losing and we were winning and I said a few things I shouldn't have said, and I was very immature and young as a person," Campbell recalls.
"I was mouthing off but he was mouthing off, so we had a bit of a run-in along the 16th."
Campbell says he has seen Duval since and "things are fine now."
The golfer had a dream summer with four tournament wins, including the New Zealand Open in January, and says his son Thomas has helped him to put his career into perspective.
"The less I think about [the good run] the better. Sometimes when you start playing well, people start to analyse it ... but my approach to it is to go with the flow and see what happens and do what I do now and if I win a major, great."
Leishman asks Campbell, who has won more than $1 million in prize money, why he chooses to stay with his aunt and uncle in South Auckland when he is in town.
"I'm a very family oriented man. They're a very warm family, my auntie and uncle. This morning I woke up and there's a cooked breakfast for me, and last night we had a roast.
"I remember as a kid I used to go up to my grandmother's place in Patea and there would be like 30 kids around and 40 aunts and uncles. I like the family atmosphere, you know. It's really nice to be around people that you love and they love you back."
