Rafa Campos was sitting with his wife at their rental house the Friday of the WM Phoenix Open when his phone buzzed. It was Drew Donovan, the tournament director of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, who asked Campos to call him. So, Campos went outside and dialed Donovan.
After the conversation, Campos was in tears.
“I go in,” Campos recalled, “and my wife was there, she’s like, ‘Hey, are you OK?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, unfortunately we can’t play the Puerto Rico Open.’ She’s like, ‘Did you get injured?
Did you fall? What happened back there?’
“I told her we got a spot in the Arnold Palmer Invitational.”
Campos, a 36-year-old from Puerto Rico, won’t mind missing his national open for his signature debut. He knows how valuable playing these lucrative, limited-field tournaments are. It was only a season ago that he got into just one event before the Mexico Open as the last Korn Ferry Tour graduate on the priority list. “I don’t feel part of the PGA Tour,” Campos said last February. He’d then miss 13 of 14 cuts later in the year before breaking through for a surprising victory at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
But with the PGA Tour shrinking the number of fully exempt members to 100 at the end of this season, playing Bay Hill is even more crucial for a guy like Campos, especially after he started this year with a solo 57th at the 59-man Sentry followed by four straight missed cuts.
“That’s a blessing,” Campos said of his API invite. “It’s an opportunity obviously we’ll always remember. I really want to take advantage of that opportunity, and at the same time, hopefully it’s the start of me gaining the confidence I need to start playing some good golf and hopefully being in that tournament for the future.”
Campos tied for 38th last season at the Mexico Open, where he recorded two holes-in-one, one in practice and the other during Friday’s second round, before finishing T-38. Back again, Campos noted that VidantaWorld was playing long and inviting for the big hitters, and that he wished he had “an extra 20 yards in the bag.”
“But I don’t,” Campos added.
Especially of late. Campos calls the last year and a half, even with his maiden win, the worst year of his career, at least in terms of consistency. His struggles reached a boiling point a few weeks ago at the Farmers Insurance Open, where Campos’ caddie told his boss, “Man, like we can’t keep playing like this. We’ve got to make some changes.”
Campos eventually connected with instructor Boyd Summerhays, the brother of former PGA Tour pro Daniel Summerhays and father of Arizona State standout Preston Summerhays, who most notably coaches Tony Finau. After a couple lessons with Summerhays, Campos started to understand the root of his problems.
“Made a huge change two weeks ago, especially the way I grip the club and how I want the club to be moving out of my backswing,” Campos explained. “I know it’s going to take some time. I’m pounding a million balls right now, that’s why I normally tape my wrist because it bothers it just because it’s a new move that I’m making. We’re working on opening the face up, I want to see the ball go left to right.”
There’s just one issue: Campos’ new fade has sapped about 10-12 yards of distance from every club.
Not ideal for this week, though Campos is hopeful the finished product will give him staying power on the PGA Tour – and more signature-event starts.
“I think it will take time,” Campos said. “Once I get used to that I know for a fact that I’ll see a lot more consistent results, a lot more consistent scores, and that’s the ultimate goal for me for this year, for the second half of this year and actually be ready for the following year.”
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