John Deere Classic: How Brian Campbell won a playoff for his 2nd PGA Tour win

New York Times

6 hours ago

There's not a shorter hitter on the PGA Tour than Brian Campbell, but it hasn't stopped him from winning twice this season.
The 32-year-old journeyman won the John Deere Classic in a playoff Sunday afternoon, beating Emiliano Grillo with a tap-in par on the first playoff hole. Ten years ago, Campbell made his PGA Tour debut at this event as a student at the University of Illinois. 'It all started here as an amateur and I've loved it ever since. I have no words,' Campbell said to CBS.
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Campbell is on his second go-around on the PGA Tour after spending most of a decade on the minor league Korn Ferry Tour, fighting upstream in a men's professional golf world that values distance above almost all else. Compare that to Campbell, who hits his driver, on average, 276.1 yards, last out of 171 players with enough measured drives, and 51.3 yards behind tour leader Aldrich Potgeiter, whom Campbell beat in a playoff in February's Mexico Open for his first win.
But playing the difficult 18th hole on Sunday in the playoff, Campbell hit his drive 307 yards into the fairway. Grillo's driver was a weapon all day, but he sprayed his tee shot into a glut of spectators in the trees right of the fairway.
Campbell roped his second shot onto the green, 16 feet from the cup. Grillo flew the green complex entirely, into the rough and 60-some feet from the hole. He failed to get up and down for par, costing him what would have been his third PGA Tour win and first in more than two years.
Campbell joins Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Sepp Straka and Ben Griffin as multi-time winners so far this season.
In the PGA Tour's new event hierarchy, the John Deere Classic is never going to attract the biggest names to Silvis, Ill., on the July 4 weekend, but several players who all need what comes along with a PGA Tour win were still able to produce drama.
The day began with a crowded leaderboard, led by defending champion Davis Thompson at 15 under. Campbell and three others, including Max Homa, were tied for second at 14 under, and another four golfers tied for sixth and three shots behind Thompson. That chaos continued Sunday afternoon — at one point in the final hour, 10 players were either tied for the lead or a shot behind, with half of them still on the course.
It stood to reason that a majority were rooting for Homa, one of the more popular players on the PGA Tour, even amid a significant downturn in his game over the last year-plus. The 2023 Ryder Cup participant was still in contention in the final few holes, but missed a pair of birdie putts inside 10 feet and had to settle for a tie for fourth place.
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David Lipsky, the 2010 Big Ten champion during his collegiate career at Northwestern, began his professional golf journey on the Asia Tour, continued on the DP World Tour, and has made 128 PGA Tour starts over the last decade with zero wins, went to the 18th hole tied for the lead after an eagle on No. 17. But the worst tee shot of the day on the final hole led to a back-breaking bogey, and dropped him into a tie for third with Kevin Roy.
That left Campbell and Grillo in the playoff. Campbell's best chance at a 72-hole win was lost on the 15th hole, when a 284-yard drive was lost out of bounds. He ended up with a double bogey on the par 4 and had to fight his way back. He did just that with a 3-wood from 270 yards out on No. 17, made birdie and got to 18 under.
Grillo, playing a group behind Campbell, had his own trouble on No. 15 with a bogey, but birdied No. 17 and ran a putt on No. 18 within tap-in range to force the playoff.