Cameron Champ seeks balance in life, trip to British Open

He also knew that putting himself in that position may have seemed a long way off when looking at his recent track record on a golf course.

Therein lies the tenuous balancing act the 26-year-old has found himself in recently.

He is already a two-time PGA Tour winner yet recently he hasn't even found a weekend. In his last five starts he has missed four cuts and withdrew from The Memorial Tournament. He has only made nine cuts in 21 starts and has just one official Top 10 finish, that coming last October in the ZOZO Championship at Sherwood.

Yet here he is, right back in contention this weekend at TPC Deere Run. He kept a clean card in a bogey-free 6-under 65. With opening rounds of 66-68, he finds himself at 14-under and just two strokes behind leader Sebastian Munoz in a five-way tie for third.

In the short-term, his sights were set on a seat on the John Deere charter flight to Sandwich, England, on Sunday evening for next week's major at Royal St. Georges.

“I knew top-5 and ties get on to the British and that was my goal,” said Champ. “But again that's not what I'm thinking about, it's just more getting more of my own mental health and begin how I'm going to approach the game in order for me to enjoy it.

“Because I haven't been enjoying it, I haven't been having fun. I've been brutal on myself, and I got to a point where I had to say, 'OK, I got to stop, this has to change, I can't be doing this anymore.'”

That was a familiar theme on Tour of late. Fellow young 20-something Matthew Wolff took time away from Tour to find himself mentally and try to get back in a good place when he started defining himself by his golf results.

Champ admitted that he had lost his identity. He was losing the chase to be the same guy on the course as he is off of it.

"So I've kind of done a flip-flop, a 180, and no matter how I play, this is who I am on and off the course, and this is especially how I am off the course,” he said. “So I don't want to come out here and act a certain way or be a certain way when that's not how I would react off the course.”

And that actually made golf secondary for him for a while, as did Wolff.

It's nice to see these guys are able to put golf and life in perspective. Making a living needs to be in a different lane than living life.

Maybe here this week, in just his second JDC start — he missed the cut in 2019 — he has found that balance.

“It's been hard. It's not been easy,” he said of dealing with everything on and off the course. “It's not so much my game, it's more me and my personal growth, I think. Because I'll go home and I'll play perfectly fine. So I know it's not, it's — it's more in depth and what a lot of guys are starting to talk about now, your personal health.

“Again, everybody reacts differently to things. Certain things affect certain people differently, and for me I had to figure it out, I had to learn it.”

As he said, a “free mind” has seemingly freed up his golf game.

“I'm free minded, I'm just playing, I'm enjoying the game,” he said. “But it's kind of always when certain things on the outside affect you, that can affect your game. I think I've finally grasped it some and starting to understand it and kind of just being able to free my mind.”