Golf is inherently unpredictable. Monday qualifiers routinely include stories of a down-on-his-luck semi-pro who caught fire and could change his life with four more good rounds. Young amateur phenoms flame out and D-III prospects come into their own and break through out of nowhere. More so than any other professional sport, golf is a breeding ground for these unexpected stories – the difference between the 1000th best golfer in the world and the 100th best golfer is a matter of just one or two swings over 72 holes.

It also means the repository of weirdness is vast and the potential for the wacky and zany is ever-present. The game comes and goes, even for the sport’s elite, and it creates incredible parity from year to year and week to week.

Thus, this statement isn’t said lightly, but after further reflection must be read into the record: Brian Campbell’s 2025 season might be the weirdest in recent PGA TOUR history.

“Crazy,” as Campbell described it to PGATOUR.COM.

It’s a bold proclamation, but at least since in-depth statistics were tracked by the PGA TOUR beginning in 1983, no season has quite matched what Campbell did in 2025.

Campbell’s season, by any objective expectations, was a smashing success. He started the year back on the PGA TOUR, qualifying through the Korn Ferry Tour after a dismal rookie season on TOUR in 2023. He was unknown and without expectations. Given his track record, just keeping his card would have been an achievement. Instead, Campbell broke through with a win at the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld. Then he won again four months later at the John Deere Classic. He qualified for every major in 2025 and locked up spots at the Masters and PGA Championship for 2026. He played in four Signature Events and will have access to all nine next year. Oh, and his card is safe through 2028.

It put Campbell in elite company. There were four players to win multiple individual Full-Field Events in 2025: Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Sepp Straka and Campbell. Put another way: three Ryder Cuppers and Campbell. Or the world’s No. 1, 2, 13 and Campbell – No. 59.

Ryan Fox also won twice, but one was an Additional Event. Ben Griffin won twice, but one was as a team with Andrew Novak in New Orleans.

That’s an incredible group to be a part of. Though Campbell clearly did not make the same impact on TOUR as Scheffler, McIlroy or Straka. Which is where Campbell’s season transforms from heart-warming to statistical anomaly.

Campbell is the first golfer in the modern era to win multiple times on the PGA TOUR but otherwise not register another top-30 finish. Yes, Campbell won twice. His next best finish? He finished T32 in back-to-back weeks at the Masters and RBC Heritage. Otherwise, he missed 10 cuts and had just one other top-40 finish – a T34 at the Truist Championship. Even at the 49-man field BMW Championship, Campbell finished 47th.

In other words, nobody has had more success while being as wildly inconsistent as the 32-year-old from Newport Beach, California. Sure, other players have caught fire once and won, then disappeared into anonymity. To do it twice in a season suggests it’s more than just a flash in the pan. Yet to never showcase it again in that season is particularly vexing.

Data Golf tracks a metric called “Expected Wins,” which compiles the number of average PGA TOUR wins they expect given a golfer's strokes-gained performances in the non-majors. Campbell’s expected wins was 0.14. Twenty-five PGA TOUR players who did not win in 2025 had a higher expected wins total than Campbell. No TOUR player has won twice in a season and had a lower expected wins total since Keegan Bradley in 2011.

Campbell ranked 145th in Strokes Gained: Total, just ahead of Adam Hadwin and just behind Justin Lower. Hadwin and Lower finished 136th and 119th in the FedExCup, respectively.

Get into the specifics of the wins, and the story becomes even more nutty. Campbell has a tree to partially thank for one of those wins. Campbell’s breakthrough triumph at the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld likely would not have happened without a fortuitous bounce off a tree. In the second playoff hole with Aldrich Potgieter, Campbell fanned a drive that started in the center of the fairway but quickly veered offline, slicing toward the out-of-bounds that lined the right side of the 18th hole. The ball appeared to cross into the out-of-bounds, only to kick off a tree and back into the rough. Campbell scrambled for birdie, bettering Potgieter’s par, to clinch his maiden TOUR title.

It was an astounding stroke of luck, and one that overshadowed what an incredible feat it was that a player of Campbell’s profile even had a chance to win in Mexico. The event’s winners since it came to VidantaWorld in 2022 have been exclusively long-hitters: Jon Rahm, Tony Finau and Jake Knapp. It is known as one of the friendliest tournaments on TOUR for the longest hitters and 180mph ball speed has felt like a prerequisite to success. Potgieter would have been a continuation of that trend. The South African finished first in driving distance this season. Where did Campbell rank in driving distance? 163rd, last on TOUR.

Asked to describe the roller coaster of the season, Campbell didn’t put much stock in the inconsistency, chalking it up to a mix of lingering injuries and getting his feet under him. Campbell opened his TOUR season with a 67 on Thursday of the Sony Open in Hawaii, then had to withdraw after catching a flu bug. That’s what kicked off the wild campaign.

“I probably would have had a solid week that week and then that carried into Palm Springs, still feeling like absolutely so weak and kind of beat myself up just to make the cut. Then, going to Torrey Pines, I was just gassed. So that was just not going to happen,” Campbell said. With two, three weeks off, really knew what I wanted to address and went to Mexico and won.

“I think I was just so drained from everything,” Campbell continued, “that, you know, once I kind of got my feet grounded again, the John Deere was up and I was ready to go.”

Campbell also said a nagging shoulder injury has bothered him all season. That, along with his distance disadvantage, made certain venues competitively prohibitive for the Illini alum.

“The weeks where the rough is five inches deep, I'm like, I don't have the strength to get through this right now,” said Campbell, who averaged 161mph ball speed in the FedExCup season. “I think you have to look at it in a realistic way and not kind of beat yourself up if it doesn't set up for you.”

So how did Campbell feel about his season? “Ecstatic,” he said.

It was a season that came out of left field, as fortuitous as it was strange and one that cannot be described without a hearty congratulations.

Congrats, Brian Campbell, on the weirdest season in PGA TOUR history.