It has been 19 years since New Zealand’s Michael Campbell stunned the golfing world, beating Tiger Woods in one of the wildest final rounds in memory to win the US Open. Campbell was a qualifier who had never won on the PGA Tour – and never would again. The world number 80 had missed the cut at the last four US Opens.
“No one expected me to win,” he says. Yet on that special weekend in 2005, golf’s great underdog mastered a notorious Pinehurst course he described as ‘brutal’, beating arguably the greatest player of all time and sending New Zealand into raptures. Back at the famed North Carolina course for the first time since his remarkable triumph, Campbell opened up to foxsports.
com.au on the ‘crazy’ mindset behind his iconic victory, the Tiger Woods moment that meant the world, and his remarkable fall from grace in the years that followed. On Tuesday, Campbell wandered the course, soaking in the memories.
Yet he still knows every corner of Pinehurst No.2 that is playing host to the US Open again this week. “I remember every single shot I played on that final round 19 years ago,” he says.
“It was so nice, so wonderful to relive those memories ...
It just gives me goose bumps just thinking about it. It’s pretty cool.” But Campbell also concedes there’s a bizarre feeling upon returning to the scene of his greatest triumph.
“It’s kind of strange. It’s been 19 years and I put that part of my memory aside a little bit in my mind,” he says. �.