Cameron Champ hopes positive outlook brings out his best again

Cameron Champ’s third round of the Shriners Children’s Open was, like many others over the last two years, not going as he planned.

He held a share of the lead entering the weekend, but his hopes of contending were quickly slipping away after a triple-bogey on the third hole and back-to-back bogeys on Nos. 5 and 6.

It’s a demoralizing feeling. One Champ has experienced all too often and struggled to shake since his last win in 2021. The three-time TOUR winner finished a career-worst 144th in last year’s FedExCup and was on a similar pace this season.

It’s not his swing that has held him back, though. It was his mentality.

His response over the final 11 holes of his third round at TPC Summerlin, which he played in 2-under, and his 6-under 65 on Sunday confirmed a critical fact Champ had begun to internalize. His mindset, and with it, his play, are finally turning a corner.

“I was my worst enemy,” Champ said. “I would just take it out on myself.

“Now I’m just trying to enjoy the positives and negatives. It’s hard out here. Just fight it out until the last hole.”

Champ arrived on the PGA TOUR with a bang, quickly fulfilling the promise shown during his standout collegiate career. Champ was still an amateur when he played his way into the top 10 after 36 holes of the 2017 U.S. Open, then starred on a stacked Walker Cup team alongside Scottie Scheffler and Collin Morikawa. Champ graduated from the Korn Ferry Tour after just one season.

His incredible length landed him on the cover of Golf Digest, even before he won in just the second start of his first TOUR season. He won in each of the next two seasons, as well.

Five years after that first win, Champ hopes the fall could lay the groundwork for his renaissance. He finished T18 at the Shriners Children’s Open, where that difficult start to the third round undid what had otherwise been a promising week. His week at TPC Summerlin was book-ended by a first-round 63 and that Sunday 65. The week prior, he finished T9 at the Sanderson Farms Championship for his first top 10 since April. Champ has improved from 143rd to 127th in the FedExCup since the start of the fall. Next season is the final one he is fully exempt for by virtue of his three victories.

It took his team pulling him aside earlier this season for a heart-to-heart chat before Champ decided to make a needed change.

“I've had conversations with my wife, with my coach. I'm just like, if I don't enjoy it, why do it,” Champ said. “For me, I knew there had to be a change because I wasn't enjoying myself, didn't want to be out here, and again, I've loved the game forever. It's given me everything. So I know it's not that I don't love the game. It's just I'm taking it out on myself."

His agent set him up with a performance wellness coach, who implored Champ to embrace the positives and enhance the self-belief that made him a rising star on TOUR. Take the good and the bad, put the work in and dig deep. Find enjoyment from the process, regardless of the end result.

“I know what I'm capable of when I'm free-spirited,” Champ said. “It's been at home for the last probably year and a half.”

There's an example of it in pretty much every round Champ plays. During the second round of the Shriners Children's Open two weeks ago, Champ opened with five birdies in his first seven holes. He played the next 10 holes 1 over as everyone else around him was making birdies in bunches in calm conditions. Still, he birdied the last to grab a share of the lead.

“I've just been taking it easy on myself,” Champ said. “This game is hard. Whenever you're struggling, if you can stay positive and just try to stick to what you're doing, no matter what, and that's all I was trying to do, just have a good tempo all day, and after that, it is what it is.”

Champ has carded eight rounds in the 60s over the last three events. He had just 12 in his previous 20 events. The talent and potential is still there. Just 28 years old, Champ is having his worst statistical season driving the ball, yet that would still rate as a career year for almost anyone else. He ranks 16th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and third in driving distance.

There’s some security for Champ knowing he has status locked up through 2024, too, which allows him to fully embrace playing freely. So while he would like to crack the top 125 by fall’s end, it’s not a necessity. It would just serve as further proof that the progress he is seeing mentally is fully translating to results. And it would set him up for an important 2024 season, where his status is in question for the first time since his rookie season.

“You can convince yourself of one thing and you can convince yourself of another. It's just a matter of what you want to believe,” he said. “That's just really what I've been trying to emphasize.”

Right now, he’s convinced himself there are better days ahead. There are plenty of reasons to believe that’s true.