Southampton (Bermuda) (AFP) – Puerto Rico’s Rafael Campos captured his first US PGA Tour title on Sunday, winning the Bermuda Championship by three strokes over American Andrew Novak. The 36-year-old from San Juan, whose wife gave birth to their first child six days ago, fired a three-under par 68 to finish on 19-under 265 for 72 holes at Port Royal Golf Course. “It has been an unbelievable week, best week of my life,” Campos said.
Campos had missed the cut in 13 of his prior 15 events since early May, but fired a 62 on Saturday and held off rivals in the final round. “After such a bad year, to have things kind of go my way, everything together at once, I’m just so happy,” an emotional Campos said. “I just can’t believe this is actually happening to me after such a year. I’m just grateful to be able to call myself a PGA Tour champion. It’s something I’ve dreamt about all my life.”
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Campos, who took home a $1.242 million top prize, said the season of struggles had given him doubts he would ever achieve that goal. “It has been such a bad year ball-striking wise,” he said. “I still believed in myself, know my support team always believed in me. This game is so hard when things aren’t going well, so hard to actually get yourself to be confident. Things have just been so different this week. I just don’t know. I’m just so grateful to be able to finish atop the leaderboard.”
Campos stumbled early in the final round with a bogey at the fourth but responded with a birdie at six and an eagle at the par-5 seventh after dropping his approach two feet from the hole. Campos closed the front nine with another bogey but opened the back nine with back-to-back birdies and answered a bogey at 14, which dropped his lead to two strokes, with a birdie at the par-5 17th and a closing par to secure the triumph.
With the victory, Campos earned a berth in his first major tournament, next April’s Masters at Augusta National. Novak fired a 71, a birdie-bogey finish leaving him just shy of his first PGA victory on 268. Belgium’s Adrien Dumont de Chassart shared third with American Mark Hubbard on 269, with Americans Vince Whaley, Justin Lower, and Sam Ryder sharing fifth on 270.
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