[PHOTOS: David Berding]
Brian Campbell is your basic throwback player on the PGA Tour, a golfer who relies on accuracy and short game in an era when just about everyone else is swinging out of their shoes with a driver to obliterate the game’s sense of scale. We’re not talking pre-Tiger era here. We’re talking pre-Jack. Maybe pre-World War II.
A guy who loses more than a stroke per round off the tee and ranks 171st on tour in driving distance isn’t supposed to have much chance of winning. And he doesn’t. Only twice has Campbell been in contention this year and has missed the weekend in more than half of his 17 starts. Fortunately, he’s turned those rare opportunities into top-10 finishes.
Both wins. In playoffs.
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A career that got stalled by injuries is now one of ingenuity amid today’s style of bomb and growl. Campbell captured the John Deere Classic today by defeating Emiliano Grillo with a two-putt par on the first sudden-death playoff hole at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, Illinois. The former University of Illinois golfer, who 10 years ago made his pro debut in this same event, is now a two-time winner in his second year on tour.
It makes no sense. Or so it seems.
“Right now, it’s surreal. I don’t know what’s going on,” said Campbell, 32, who earned $US1.512 million and added a third year to his exemption status while rising 60 spots to 55th in the world. The Korn Ferry Tour graduate began the year 196th. “I have no words. I mean, to be let alone in a playoff and to finish it off this way, it’s just been amazing.”
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Campbell became the sixth player to win multiple titles this year. He joins Ben Griffin and New Zealand’s Ryan Fox as first-time winners who have added a second victory this season.
“I guess that’s how I approach most weeks,” Campbell said of his outlook on his rare chances for success. “There are things I can control and things I can’t control. The best thing I can do is give myself as many looks as I can; I was doing that.
“So I think there were definitely moments in the week where I was thinking about, Hey, you know, this could be a special week. I don’t know if I like to let myself get ahead of myself and think about winning all that much, but I know if we stick around and keep doing the right things that we’re going to be there in the end.”
Two playoffs, two wins for Brian Campbell 🏆🏆 pic.twitter.com/VSDZeW2aYA
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 6, 2025
Campbell and Grillo, who each closed with four-under 67s to finish at 18-under 266, emerged from a leaderboard so congested that at one point midway through the final round 19 players were within two strokes of one another. Nine players held at least a share of the lead at some point, not including 54-hole leader Davis Thompson, the defending champion, whose closing 72 was the only round over par among the top 32 finishers.
The players who enjoyed some time at the top included not only Campbell and Grillo, but also a rejuvenated Max Homa – who forged an early two-stroke advantage – Nick Dunlap, Beau Hossler, Carson Young, Kevin Roy, Jacob Bridgeman and David Lipsky. It might well have been a three-man playoff after Lipsky climbed into a tie with an eight-foot eagle putt at the par-5 17th, but his duck-hook off the tee at 18 led to a bogey after he missed a 15-footer. He tied for third with Roy at 267 after a 68, while Roy shot 65.
Grillo, relegated to his seventh runner-up finish, nearly ended it in regulation, but his 38-foot birdie try for the win on the tough par-4 18th missed left of the hole by inches.
“I got myself there. I gave myself a chance. You know, I made some good putts,” said Grillo, 32, who started the week 105th in the FedEx Cup standings – outside the new magic number for keeping a card – and moved to a safe 64th. “Hit a good putt on the 72nd and that’s all I can do. We’re one short, but we’ll keep working.”
In the playoff, Campbell, deciding to rest for 40 minutes to conserve energy rather than keeping loose on the range, drove the ball 262 metres (286 yards) safely into the fairway and then parked his 7-iron approach from 172 metres 16 feet below the hole. Grillo, after finding the right rough off the tee, then nuked a wedge over the green. His high lob came up short of the putting surface and he was not close on a par save from 23 feet. Campbell safely two-putted to prove that his playoff win at the Vidanta Mexican Open in February over the tour’s longest hitter, Aldrich Potgieter was no fluke.
Enjoying support from the crowd who was aware of his Illini ties, Campbell confesses to be a grinder who prides himself on course management. “I love having the moment to figure out any shot.”
Brian Campbell and his girlfriend Kelsi McKee celebrate with the trophy after Campbell won the John Deere Classic in a playoff.
He has figured out how to not worry about the one shot that is a handicap against the bombers. He averages 252.9 metres (276.6 yards) off the tee. That isn’t just short in today’s terms. Ten years ago when he turned pro, that would have ranked 173rd on tour, tied with Colt Knost, who was on the grounds as part of the CBS broadcast team.
At TPC Deere Run, he played to type, ranking 64th in driving distance. But so what? Campbell was fifth in greens in regulation and second in scrambling. In strokes gained categories of note, he ranked eighth in approach, 11th around the green and sixth in putting. Nice formula for success. Throwback stuff.
He was asked about the message he was sending to the tour’s long hitters, who are many. “I’m not going to tell them to hit it any shorter, that’s for sure,” he replied. “I think they’ll be just fine doing what they do. It just goes to show that there is so many different games out here and so many different ways to play the game. There is not one way to get it done, and that was something that I proved to myself earlier this season, and it’s paid off.”
His perseverance has paid off, too. He lost two years to injury, in 2021-2022, and thought about finding a different line of work. Now he finds himself vying for a potential spot on the US Ryder Cup team. Surreal indeed.
“I’ve worked my entire life to be in this position, and unfortunately we had a couple years there where it wasn’t looking so good,” Campbell said. “You have to start thinking about am I going do something else. Maybe pro golf or this route is not going to work out. But it all… it really was all second stage Q-School about two, three years ago. I made like a quintuple-bogey on a par 3 and I thought my career was over in that moment. That night just kind of had a self-talk with myself. Said, ‘You know what? Whatever happens is OK. Trust yourself.’ The next round I went out there and shot eight under and got myself right back in there. I guess I was like, ‘Maybe golf is not over for me.’ That moment was when everything changed.”
Has it ever.