Hard Work

I feel like I need to provide some context here. I'm not sure everyone fully appreciates this win by Brian Campbell on the PGA Tour. I get that not everyone follows Illini Golf like I do, but even some casual fans seem to be missing what was accomplished here. So instead of writing about basketball, let me take you through it.

Let's start with the history here. Brian Campbell was at Illinois from 2012 through 2015. For some Illini golf context, 2012 was when Thomas Pieters won the individual NCAA title and 2015 was when the Illini won stroke play at the NCAA Championships but lost to USC (freaking Rico Hoey) in the semifinals.

Which means that Campbell was part of the team that nearly won the NCAA Title in 2013, beating "the greatest college golf team of all time" (Cal) in the semifinals but losing to Alabama in the finals. Mike Small's squad lost that match play final 4-1 with Thomas Pieters winning the main event match over Justin Thomas but the other four Illini (Tom Detry, Charlie Danielson, Alex Burge, and Campbell) all losing to their Alabama opponents. It's the only time the Illini have been in the finals of match play.

His was a storied career in Champaign (2014 Big Ten Player of the Year, T9 at the NCAA Championships that year, participating in NCAA Match Play three times, won an NCAA Regional). And then his success in professional golf came fairly quickly. He played well enough on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2016 the he earned his PGA TOUR card for 2017. But that was a humbling experience (as ADdC just found out) when trying to stay in the top-125 with the best golfers on the planet.

That second trip down to the lower levels of golf can be very difficult. If you don't have KFT status (think AAA baseball) then you can play the Canadian Tour or the South American Tour or maybe even go over to Europe or Asia to try to regain some status (that's what ADdC is doing in Europe). "Status" means guaranteed starts, and guaranteed starts means you can earn the money/points necessary to move up to the next level. But even with exempt status, players can languish on the Korn Ferry Tour for years.

The rules have changed over the decades (and they will change again significantly in 2026), but the main goal, simplified, has been to be one of the 250-best golfers. 125 guys stick on the PGA Tour year-to-year, 75 guys stick on the Korn Ferry Tour year-to-year, and then there are 50 or so who drop down from the PGA Tour to the Korn Ferry Tour each year. There are several other layers (conditional status, past champions, injury waivers), but that's been the general framework. 125 stick on the main tour, 75 stick on the secondary tour, and 30-50 players pass each other going up or down.

If you fall to #76 on the Korn Ferry Tour, now there's pressure. You move to conditional status (you don't get a start in every tournament). And they "reshuffle" the players on conditional status three different times so if you have two bad months, now you're shuffled further down the list and you might only get two or three more starts. That system spits golfers out the bottom on a weekly basis. It's a brutal fight.

Which is where Brian Campbell found himself at the final Korn Ferry Tour event in 2023. He'd lost his PGA Tour Card after the 2017 season. He had toiled down in the lower levels for six years. In 2022, he only had three Korn Ferry Tour starts in total. Which meant that he was likely just playing mini-tour events and practicing and wondering if he can even do this for a living.

The Korn Ferry Tour has a "Q-School" where you can qualify for the tour the next year. He finished 45th at the final stage of Q-School in 2022 which gave him conditional status through the first reshuffle. Meaning, put up a good finish somewhere in those first few months and when they "reshuffle" the list you'll have enough points to earn starts in the second group of tournaments.

His T17 at the Astara Golf Championship in early 2023 earned him enough points to make the second reshuffle. His T9 at the Advent Health Championship got him through to the third reshuffle. And with his T7 at the Wichita Open, he made it all the way through the full season.

As discussed above, the top-30 get a PGA Tour card and 31 through 75 earn an invite back to the Korn Ferry Tour without having to go through the any of the qualifying tournaments (a full card with exempt status into every KFT tournament). And the final week, Campbell had earned enough points with his conditional status to be right on the cut line at #75. He missed the cut in that tournament, which meant he had to sweat out a thousand different scenarios that could drop him to #76. I'll let this article pick it up from there:

[Brandon] Crick said Sunday that the bubble was an unfamiliar position, having otherwise been either comfortably inside the top 75 or far outside the number into the decisive event. The nerves were new. He handled them well, battling back from an opening-round 75 at the Scarlet Course with a 1-under 70 in grueling Friday afternoon conditions to make the cut on the number and earn a fighting chance at playing on to the season-ending Korn Ferry Tour Championship.

Ultimately Crick needed a three-way T23 or better to pass Brian Campbell for the No. 75 spot on the Points List. Crick finished in a nine-way T24. After missing the cut on Friday, Campbell survived the weekend waiting game to secure the No. 75 spot, less than 7 points clear of Crick.

I need to set the scene here for you.

This is the first weekend of November in 2023 (so the weekend when John Paddock hit Isaiah Williams with the long touchdown pass to beat Minnesota in Minneapolis). Brian Campbell needs points to assure himself a spot in the top-75 and a full KFT card for 2024 but he misses the cut (so no points). He then has to wait out the final two rounds to see if he'll stay at #75 on the points list.

Brandon Crick is also fighting for that 75th-spot. On the final day, Crick needs to finish T23 to gain enough points to pass Campbell. He finished T24. Campbell gets the full card and Crick has to go on to the postseason qualifying tournament to try to earn his KFT card.

Campbell then uses that full season on the KFT to A) nearly win the Astara Golf Championship (lost in a playoff) in February, B) finish tied for 3rd the next week at the Argentina Open, C) finish 2nd at the Ascendant Open (which essentially locked up his top-25 finish which would earn him a PGA Tour card for 2025) and D) another T2 performance at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship to put icing on his already-secured PGA Tour card. From "I need a top-20 this week to keep my conditional status and get more starts this season" in February of 2023 to "I need one bogey from Brandon Crick here so I can gain my full KFT card" in November of 2023 to getting his PGA Tour card at the completion of the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour to now winning a PGA Tour event in February of 2025.

Watch this whole video if you can, but if you only watch part of it, start at 1:28 to hear the comments from his girlfriend, Kelsi McKee, after his win on Sunday:

I don't know why you skipped that. It's great. Here, I'll transcribe the best part of her quote for you:

"When I tell you how much he's worked, how he's come literally from the bottom to here, and watching that process on the Korn Ferry Tour when he almost lost his status there, to now, to see him win? All I see is just all the work he's put in. And this moment belongs to him."

What a fantastic quote. I can only imagine their conversations when he was sitting right at #75 and watching other players move up and down the leaderboard. In that moment, a Korn Ferry Tour card, let alone a PGA Tour card, let alone a PGA Tour win, had to seem light years away. And that's just going back two years and three months. Think of 2022 (only 3 KFT starts). Think of Covid when tournaments were shut down. Think of losing your PGA Tour card in 2017 and waiting 7 years to get it back. Think of how many golf balls he hit on various driving ranges.

To go through all of that and emerge with a PGA Tour victory? To now get to play in the freaking Masters in six weeks? To have his PGA Tour card now locked up THROUGH THE 2027 SEASON after this victory? It's just about the biggest payoff (to years and years of hard work) that you can imagine. In 2022, I'm sure he was wondering if getting back to the PGA Tour was ever going to happen. And now, with this win, he's set through the end of the 2027 season. What a story.

Congrats, Brian. Good luck at THE MASTERS. And one last thing.

Spend some of that $1.2 million you earned on an engagement ring. With unwavering support like that, Kelsi is a keeper.