Micheel, Campbell both need to keep calm in a major way

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- He let go of the lead coming down the stretch like it was radioactive. The only other time he was in position to win one that really mattered, it mattered too much to Shaun Micheel.

That was 13 months ago and 2 1/2 hours down the road, at the B.C. Open in Endicott. Micheel had played in more than 100 PGA Tours events by then. He had a 3-shot lead heading into the final round and shot 74.

"When you kind of throw it away like I did," he recalled, "it sits with you a little while."

How long could turn out to be a very interesting answer. On Saturday, Micheel cruised through the first 15 holes at the PGA Championship to reach 7-under and open a 3-shot lead. He promptly bogeyed the next three to fall into a tie with Chad Campbell.

"I want to win the tournament," Micheel said afterward, nodding in the direction of his wife, Stephanie, "but the most important thing to me is that lady over there carrying my child."

People keep saying this is the perfect year for an untested, relatively unknown golfer to win the season's final major. The PGA Championship already has a history speckled with guys not only winning their first Grand Slam tournament -- 12 of the last 15 -- but winning in their first appearance -- six in all, the last being John Daly in 1991.

The perfect year

The favorable omens don't end there. The season's first three majors have already been claimed by guys breaking their championship maiden. Talk about unknowns: Until he won last month's British Open, so few fans could have identified Ben Curtis that most thought he came from a witness-protection program instead of the Hooters Tour.

Micheel, 34, put in his time in on the minor-league circuits, too, but that's not the only thing he and Curtis have in common. They became pals when Curtis and Memphis-based Micheel met while visiting kids at St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

Micheel made a point of saying hello to one of them as a TV camera followed him the down the fairway on the back nine while he was carving up Oak Hill with precise iron play and a hot putter. Surprisingly, perhaps, his demeanor didn't change much when the birdies turned into bogeys and forced him to settle for a 69.

"Obviously, bogeying the last three holes, I knew that wasn't good and I know it brought a lot more people into the mix. It was just a poor way to end. But," he added, " I don't think I'm going to feel any different."

Micheel paused. Ever since he climbed up the leaderboard a day earlier, he's struggled to get accustomed to the heights.

"As far as being tied for the lead," he said, "maybe it's going to be a little bit easier. I don't feel like I have to hold on."

Following Hogan's path

Campbell spent years honing his game on the same Texas dirt that gave rise to Ben Hogan, and he displays the same flinty-eyed cool under pressure. Unlike Hogan and Micheel, however, people saw this kid coming.

The 29-year-old turned up prominently featured in Sports Illustrated several weeks ago, elected by his peers as the next star-in-the-making.

Asked whether he was thinking about the trend of first-time winners, both during this season and at the PGA, Campbell didn't flinch.

"I've tried to keep it out of my mind, but it's kind of inevitable that it will happen," he said. "Still got a lot of golf to play, though."

Micheel admitted the thing that was holding him back was not so much his game, "but my comfort level playing in front of people.

"A few years ago, if you had put me in this position, I probably would have shot 85. I was just so timid. I felt comfortable inside the ropes, but I felt almost embarrassed if I hit it outside the ropes and I hit someone, like I did today. Probably would have ruined my day."

This time, at No. 13, after flying the green with his approach shot and hitting a woman sitting on a blanket just behind, Micheel kept his cool.

He wedged the ball to 18 feet and dropped the par putt.

It's hardly a lack of courage holding him back. More like a lack of urgency.

Only a few years ago, while playing in one of those minor-league tournaments in North Carolina, Micheel stripped to his boxers and dove into a river to rescue an elderly couple from a car that had plunged in.

"I wish that had some bearing on how I played golf," he said, "because if it did, then I would probably play well every week."

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press.