Former U.S. Open winner Campbell warns Willett to protect himself
— -- Danny Willett will step into unknown territory this week, and not just because he is being introduced to the U.S. Open at one of the world's most unforgiving and penal golf courses: Oakmont Country Club.
The quiet life in the English county of Yorkshire has been replaced by the raised global profile of a first-time major winner, propelling new Masters Champion Willett, blinking but smiling, into the media spotlight.
Coping with the glare can be tough for players, as the experience of Michael Campbell, who unexpectedly won the U.S. Open in 2005, proved so painfully.
The New Zealander's game slipped into a spiral of decline after his Pinehurst victory and eventually led him to quit the sport. He urged Willett not to repeat his mistakes.
"Danny needs to do two things," said Campbell, who was only the second player from his country to win a major. "He needs to say 'no' more often that he says yes, and he has to look to the future -- as Tiger always did -- rather than dwell on the past.
"If I could rewind to 2005, I would do a lot of things differently. My mistake was saying yes to everybody and everything and I can see from Danny's social media activity that he is doing a lot of that stuff.
"He's got to say no. He can't do everything. Fortunately, he's got great people around him. Chubby Chandler, his manager, is very good at knowing how to handle it."
Like Willett, Campbell is polite, charming and engaging, but he was everybody's friend after his major success in America and seven years after his U.S. Open victory, he ended two decades on the European Tour and left professional golf.
The disillusion didn't finish there, either: at Campbell's lowest point, he didn't even touch a golf club for two years, and he has admitted that his family went through "turmoil"; he split from his wife, Julie, in 2014.
Now 47, and running two golf academies near Marbella in Spain, Campbell added: "My world was turned upside down after Pinehurst and I am sure Danny is experiencing that, especially with the U.S. Open coming up and the expectation now on him. He'll be the centre of attention where he wasn't before.
"If people came to me directly after I won at Pinehurst, I would say yes. If they approached my manager, he would be more likely to say no. It's the 'good cop, bad cop' thing. The manager gets painted as the bad guy but he's doing his job properly.
"My problem is that I would quite often overrule my manager. I remember even three or four months after winning the U.S. Open I would spend probably an hour with him going through requests and I pretty well said yes to every one of them.
"The downside was that I ran out of time to play golf. I cut down on my tournament play from 25 events a year to around 18 or 19. I was doing all sorts of charity things, which was fantastic but I didn't have the time to practise.
"There were a lot of issues that I didn't manage well, but I take full responsibility. My manager certainly wasn't to blame -- it was completely down to me. He was 100 percent right, but I wanted to please everybody and to say yes to everybody."
Campbell will watch Willett at Oakmont in his role as an analyst for broadcaster Fox Sports, and has clearly become a fan of the Englishman.
"Danny is obviously a great bloke," he said. "I remember him when he came out on Tour about six or seven years ago and thinking: 'Wow, this kid can play'. He's got that cockiness and belief you need and he's definitely a great player.
"But if you are naturally generous with your time, you sometimes have to put a lid on it. It's nice to have that personality trait, which Danny clearly has, but it can lead you off the beaten track and mess with your focus. He will want to play and win, but the distractions will always be there now."
Campbell took huge personal satisfaction from successfully defying the last-round charge of Woods at the top of his game in 2005 at Pinehurst No. 2. Now, he wishes he had adopted Woods' approach to handling each major victory.
"One thing I admired about Tiger in his prime was how he turned up at a major, having won the previous one, and it was as if he had already forgotten about the last one.
"I wasn't focused at all after Pinehurst. I tried to drag my U.S. Open victory along with me wherever I went. That win was always on my mind and it was something I didn't handle correctly.
"I wish I had been able to close that chapter and start a new book, as Tiger did. To him, the past was in the past and he only ever looked to the future."
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