KEY POINTS:
Not for the first time, Michael Campbell heads into the New Zealand Open with little to recommend him.
It's almost a calling card for the 2005 US Open champion, whose career has filled a landscape as varied as mountain tops and valley floors.
He's coming off a dire 12-over 84 at Huntingdale in Melbourne last Friday which ensured his early exit after two rounds at the Australian Masters.
For an individual accustomed to the game's many slings and arrows, Campbell remains upbeat, saying his meltdown in Melbourne is in the past as he searches for a second New Zealand Open title at the 2007 championship starting at The Hills near Queenstown tomorrow.
Campbell has never been one to publicly lament his lot when the tide has turned against him, as it has done for much of this year as he tumbled from 22nd to 153rd in world rankings.
Likewise, what happened in Melbourne has not pierced his bullet-proof self assurance, something which could stand him in good stead on the new 6610m course being used this week on the outskirts of Arrowtown.
He even found a positive outcome in that the extra days off enabled him to fly his coach Jonathan Yarwood from Florida to Sydney where they spent a couple of days working hard on the player's swing.
Campbell was in his usual confident mood yesterday, saying he sees similarities in his present predicament to what happened 12 months ago when he missed the Masters cut across the Tasman immediately before finishing in a share of second place at the New Zealand Open, then staged at Gulf Harbour near Auckland.
"My form over the years has always been hot or cold. I remember I missed five cuts before I won the US Open," Campbell, 38, said.
"As a sportsman you go through good and bad times and you have to learn from the bad."
His rollercoaster career has afforded Campbell plenty of opportunities to ponder his plight in adversity.
There was the career-threatening wrist injury which followed his tie for third at the 1995 British Open and produced two to three seasons of wretched form. He peaked in 2000 with four tournament victories - including the NZ Open at Paraparaumu when he beat compatriot Craig Perks in a playoff - before a disastrous flirtation with the US PGA Tour in 2003 when he missed nine successive cuts.
Scores of 80 and above were usual in 2004 - then out of the blue he hit pay dirt at the 2005 US Open.
Given such wild swings it is perhaps understandable he is so laid back.
"It's the way I am."
Campbell admitted he allowed business ventures as well as corporate and charity work to divert his attention from his core business of playing golf after the US Open triumph.
But he stressed his focus was now back on the straight and narrow.
"I am constantly working on my swing and I hired a personal trainer a month ago. That's one side of things I let slip in the last couple of years."
Open organisers will have their fingers crossed he plays well tomorrow.
Despite his public pronouncements, a sloppy start will prove doubly difficult to recover from so soon after his capitulation at Huntingdale.
Organisers can ill afford not to have the New Zealand No 1 around for the money rounds at the weekend.
Public interest has been extraordinarily high for the first championship to be held in the South Island in 22 years, but the response of European players is less so.
Organisers have delayed confirming the field until today as they continue to chase as many players from overseas as possible.
- NZPA
