Golf: Masters beckons hot Campbell

.

Hotshot golfer Michael Campbell has his sights on a trip to Augusta for this year's Masters tournament - but he would rather get there under his own steam.

In the wake of his third Australasian Tour victory of the season at the Heineken Classic on Sunday night, Campbell is being tipped as a chance for an invitation from the Masters officials to one of the world's red-letter championships in April.

Campbell's sensational 20-under 268 at the Vines - winning by a record six shots from Denmark's Thomas Bjorn - gave his year a tremendous kickstart, following hard on the heels of his wins in the Johnnie Walker Classic in Taiwan late last year and his New Zealand Open triumph at Paraparaumu Beach nine days ago.

His world ranking was 90 before Sunday's victory and will certainly improve several notches. But Campbell knows he needs to keep up his glowing run of form a while longer.

"It would be nice to get an invitation, but I would rather get there on my own merits," Campbell said.

"I believe the top 50 in the world get in.

"If I do well next week, and the week after that, I might get into the top 50."

It is all a far cry from 1997, the low point of the 30-year-old's career.

Having set the 1995 British Open alight and leading going into the final round, only to finish in a tie for third, Campbell's form, allied to injury problems, nosedived.

At the French Open two years later it came to a head with rounds of 78 and 79 as he gave the cut a wide berth. The clubs were dispatched rapidly around his hotel room.

"I sat on my bed and thought, 'what can I do?', maybe go back to my old job as a telephone technician or work in a pro shop," Campbell recalled yesterday.

Instead he turned the corner last year and now seems set for a bumper 2000.

As the Heineken Classic - along with the Johnnie Walker - is a dual-sanctioned event with the European Tour, Campbell has bolted clear on that order of merit.

He has won $US407,341, and Swede Mattias Gronberg is second way back on $US168,067. Campbell has automatic entry to the British Open and is likely to get invited to the US Open, the US PGA and the world matchplay championship.