KEY POINTS:
Failure to win a title this year hasn't fazed Michael Campbell.
He got close several times, with seven top five finishes so far, but he's at ease with his game as he prepares for this week's $1.5 million Blue Chip New Zealand Open starting at Gulf Harbour today.
Campbell is chasing a second Open title, after an emotional win at Paraparaumu Beach six years ago. But this golfer operates in a different orbit from the bloke who held the trophy aloft that day - as it is his first appearance at home since winning the United States Open last year.
"It is a little different," he said yesterday. "I'm a major winner now, a world matchplay champion and expectations are a little higher than 18 months ago. I've grown as a person and learnt a lot about myself."
He said the first six months after his win at Pinehurst, North Carolina, in June last year went by in "a complete blur". He's been busier off the course than on it, with the lure of course design holding appeal as well as his desire to help young players.
Campbell will donate 1 per cent of his earnings for the rest of his career to the Michael Campbell Foundation to help develop young players; on Monday he will host a clinic for young Maori golfers.
But he insists the game is not taking a back seat. "I'm not winding down. I'm still putting the foot on the accelerator. Look at Vijay Singh. He's 43 [Campbell is 37] and an example of how to still compete at that age."
The world No 22 said it had been a frustrating year, mostly due to his putting, which he estimates cost him half a shot a round. That's two shots over a tournament and, in a game where margins are small, that's plenty.
"Don't blame the arrows, blame the Indian. It's all about confidence and I feel more in control with my putting now than all year."
He began the European Tour with a third-place finish in Shanghai and winning that tour's Order of Merit remains an ambition. He's begun well and sits third.
Campbell is one of three players in the top 100 at Gulf Harbour, the others being Australian Richard Green (No 62) and England's Simon Dyson (No 87).
If a chap went to an ATP Tour event and scrawled "R. Federer" on the entry list, the rest of the field would think about finishing second. Golf is not like that and, despite his ranking, Campbell is no runaway favourite.
He knows his career has been one long roller-coaster. "If you look at it, I've either been missing cuts or winning tournaments.
"In 2005, I missed five cuts in a row and won the US Open a month later, so I'm not worried. That's my personality. I can put it away quickly, close one door and open a new one."
Campbell missed the cut at the Australian Masters in Melbourne last week; the upside being it gave him extra time to rest an ankle he injured a week earlier. He'll be worth watching today when he tees off with Dyson and Hutt amateur Andrew Green.
His compatriot, Michael Long, another past winner, is back after missing his card for next year's US PGA Tour, but he's no mental wreck wondering where the next dollar is coming from.
"It's the first time in a while I get to put my feet up for eight weeks," he said, referring to his later start on the Nationwide Tour next year.
"I've worked out where I'm fishing, what wine I'm drinking and what I'm going to have on the barbecue."
So the amiable 1996 champion has life's important things sorted out.
There are 41 New Zealanders in the field of 156, 14 amateurs and seven past champions - Campbell, Long, Auckland-based Aussie Peter Fowler, Mahal Pearce and Australians Peter O'Malley, Craig Parry and Terry Price - lining up.
The form guide would point to Australian lefties Richard Green and Greg Chalmers, who shared second at the Masters last Sunday in Melbourne; or Nathan Green, who was equal 17th after finishing equal fifth at the Australian Open a week earlier and being second-best rookie on the US PGA Tour this year in 41st place.
* This week's winner will receive a Maori carving by Gisborne artist Pio Pera Rauna. When it was unveiled yesterday at Campbell's press conference, the player said: "I'll take it now." Prescient words, perhaps.
