Rafael Campos in June of final yr, left, and earlier this month.
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Rafael Campos had a tough 2022 on the Korn Ferry Tour. Like, actually tough. In 20 begins, he made simply 5 cuts. In 48 rounds, he broke 70 simply 10 instances. He battled accidents and self-doubt, and he was carrying extra weight on his 5-foot-10 body than he would have favored. He made lower than $26,000.
“I just had enough, to tell you the truth,” Campos mentioned. “I really did.”
Something wanted to vary.
Everything wanted to vary.
With a dismal season in his rearview mirror, Campos got down to reinvent himself, starting with the workforce round him. New supervisor. New coach. New nutritionist. Even a brand new chiropractor. His main objective was damage prevention. That started with train and an improved weight loss plan, which rapidly resulted in weight loss.
Lots of it. Ten kilos. Then 20. Then 30. Then extra nonetheless.
Since Campos dedicated to his new life-style simply 5 months in the past, he has lost roughly 45 kilos, he mentioned. His play in 2023 has confirmed constructive indicators, too, with two made-cuts in 4 KFT begins, together with a T12, and likewise a T48 end on the PGA Tour, in his native Puerto Rico, earlier this month.
“I’m just really upset sometimes when I think about it that I waited so long to make this type of change,” Campos mentioned this week from his second PGA Tour begin of the yr, on the Corales Puntacana Championship, within the Dominican Republic.
So why now, he was requested. What motivated him to lastly get in form? Had anybody impressed him?
Yes, Campos mentioned, somebody had.
“I do remember Rory, an interview he had,” Campos started, talking of Rory McIlroy. “Rory was never fat like me, but he was chubbier, and I do remember an interview, I still go back to it, I want to say it was, like, a good 13 years ago. One reporter basically asked him like, hey, how did you get in shape so quick or why did he do it. He was like, man, my lower back was really bothering me and if I want to play golf until I’m 60 or something like that, I have to get in shape. I do remember that and I still remember that kind of triggered me saying like, OK, this is one of the top players in the world and he’s doing something about it, just because he knows we have to use our body to play and to be able to work. I think that definitely helped.”
It’s onerous to overstate Campos’ transformation. When Mark Williams, a longtime media-relations staffer for the Tour, first noticed Campos on web site this week in Puntacana, he didn’t recognize him. Williams wasn’t alone. “A lot of guys would just walk right across, right in front of me and then realize, oh, wait, that’s Rafa, what’s going on?” Campos mentioned.
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Which is strictly what Campos was hopeful would occur when he began shedding kilos.
“My wife five months ago, she’s like, hey, you should post like on Instagram and Facebook so people can see that you’re really working hard,” he mentioned. “I’m like, no, honey, I just want to see the reactions.”
Even golf’s Adonis, Camillo Villegas, has been impressed by his good friend’s makeover. When Campos spent a few weeks at Villegas’ house within the Bahamas in January, the host was impressed by Campos’ dedication: the 5 a.m. health club classes, the wholesome snacks. “It’s pretty cool to see the reaction of the other guys,” Campos mentioned. “But it’s also a motivator. It really kind of lets me know I was in pretty bad shape or lets me know that, man, you’re working hard and people are seeing it.”
Campos’ subsequent objective: get again to the PGA Tour, and keep there. His solely full season on Tour got here in 2020-21 when he made seven cuts in 25 begins and earned $565,186 on the again of a runner-up end at Puntacana, the place he’s again within the area this week.
Might he contend once more? Don’t rely him out. And if not this week, one other week quickly, Campos mentioned.
“I just feel great, I really do,” he mentioned. “I think all the hard work I’ve put in the last five months will give me results. I don’t know when, but I know they will.”
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