Cameron Champ: Whatever Happened To The Tour’s Longest Driver?

This time last year, Cameron Champ burst onto the PGA Tour, his reputation as the ultimate bomber preceded him.

The 2018 Sanderson Farms event at the Country Club of Jackson was Champ’s ninth start on tour and he’d overpower the course.  He came up with a dazzling Sunday finish, crafting birdies on five of the final six holes and won by four shots over Corey Conners.

Excitement surrounded the 23-year-old who looked to be the tour’s newest star.

But something happened on the path to stardom.

After a great fall, the calendar year 2019 was not a good one for Champ.  He missed 11 cuts and had no top 10s.  That hot fall start earned him enough points to get into the FedEx playoffs and he made it to the BMW.

“At first, I didn’t feel like it affected me,” Champ said of the spotlight.  “But on the inside I think it did. I had expectations —  worrying about things I wasn’t worrying about all last year and in the beginning of the fall. But it was a good learning experience. I had a lot of ups and downs. I had some injuries mid-season that kind of halted me for awhile. I tried to play through those.

“But as a rookie season, if you would have told me I would have won and made it to the BMW, I think I would have took it and signed the paper then.”

Most of those FedEx points that got him there came in the fall.  In calendar year 2019 he missed a head-scratching 11 cuts.  Add in no top 10s and he virtually disappeared from the contender scene.

Part of that may have been caused by some back issues, which have apparently been resolved.

Hopefully a return to the scene of his stellar play last year can help him find that sort of form that everyone witnessed a year ago.  Right now he’s ranked 168th in the world and his potential factor is way to high for him to be sitting down there.

So the big question for the 2019-2020 season — can Cameron Champ rebound?

Remains to be seen but there will be a lot of eyes on him in person this week.