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VALLARTA, Mexico — Brian Campbell cashed in on a huge break Sunday when his tee shot in a playoff bounced out of the trees and back into play, leading to a birdie on the second extra hole to win the Mexico Open over Aldrich Potgieter.
Campbell, who closed with a 1-under 70 at Vidanta Vallarta, won for the first time since he turned pro a decade ago, and the timing could not have been better.
The victory sends him to the Masters, the Players Championship and the PGA Championship, along with five of the $20 million signature events left on the PGA Tour schedule.
“To be in this position is just so unreal,” the 31-year-old Campbell said after calmly holing a birdie putt just inside 4 feet on the 18th green for the win. “I can’t believe it, really.”
Good golf wasn’t enough. Campbell needed the break of a lifetime.
Campbell and Potgieter, who shot 71, each made birdie on the 18th in regulation and began the playoff with a par. Returning to the par-5 closing hole for the third time — a big advantage for the 20-year-old South African with his power — Campbell hit a low, hard fade toward the out-of-bounds stakes.
But it crashed into the trees and popped back out into the rough. He still was 94 yards behind Potgieter, but at least he had a shot. He hit fairway metal to 68 yards short, and hit a lob wedge that checked up just short of the hole.
“You’ve got to get those breaks sometimes,” Campbell said. “Unfortunately I hit a really bad tee shot there, caught the tree, was able to keep it in play and get ourselves in a good position to get a wedge and keep the pressure on.
“I was just so happy that I was able to kind of stay in it to the end.”
Potgieter twice hit the 18th fairway in the playoff and had a 6-iron for his second shot, and both times he made par. The first time was a hard draw over the green. On the second playoff hole, he was posing over a shot on a perfect line until it came up a foot short and into a bunker.
He blasted out some 6 feet by and missed the birdie putt to the left, setting up Campbell for a moment that once seemed so far away.
He was winless in 186 starts on the Korn Ferry and PGA Tour combined, earning $1,487,830. His payoff Sunday was $1,260,000.
Potgieter started the final round with a one-shot lead, fell behind with two bogeys to end the front nine, caught up to Campbell with a superb up-and-down on the par-5 14th. They each made one bogey coming in and finished at 20-under 264.
Potgieter, who led the field in driving distance, failed to capitalize on the par-5 closing hole after hitting the fairway each time.
“Hopefully, my time will come soon,” said Potgieter, who won the 2022 British Amateur at age 17 and last year became the youngest to win on the Korn Ferry Tour.
“Pressure is a big thing,” he said. “You can’t beat it. You just have to learn and adjust to it the next time.”
Isaiah Salinda finished with a bogey-free 65 to finish alone in third. Aaron Rai, at No. 29 in the world the highest-ranked player in the field, briefly shared the lead with an approach to 20 inches for eagle on the par-5 sixth. He was 1 over the rest of the way for a 67 and tied for fourth with Ben Griffin (67).
Campbell said it was grit that helped him win, and that goes back further than Sunday.
He played his college golf at Illinois and was the low amateur in the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay. He earned a PGA Tour card in 2017 and missed the cut 13 times in 20 starts. One of those was the Zurich Classic, where he received a penalty for slow play in a peculiar ruling because it also involved his partner, Miguel Angel Carballo.
And then it was back to the minor leagues for the next seven years until he was runner-up three times and finished No. 8 on the Korn Ferry Tour to get another crack at the PGA Tour.
The victory gives him a two-exemption through 2027 and gives him a busy March and April with the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the Players Championship, the Masters and the RBC Heritage all on his schedule.
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