Rafael Campos, a surprise winner of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in November, has reflected on his huge victory on the island as he prepares to tee off in the first PGA tournament of the year.

Campos is competing this week in The Sentry in Kapalua, Hawaii, a tournament contested by Tour winners and Tour Championship qualifiers from the previous year. It is just one of the events that the Puerto Rican thought he would never get the chance to play. He received his invite to the Masters on December 23.

It has been a whirlwind few weeks for Campos, who became a father just days before his big win. He learned his wife, Stephanie, was pregnant in the spring but then he started missing cuts, nine in a row.

He was 147th in the FedEx Cup standings heading into Bermuda and even if he stayed in the top 150, his chances to play were going to be severely limited this year, so it is fair to say he feared his days on tour were numbered

“I've always had a back-up plan,” Campos told Associated Press in Hawaii.

“This was the first time, and honestly things were going extremely bad, that I did not have a fall-back plan. It was tough on my mind knowing that I’d worked so hard for 15 years but I could lose everything and start back at square one.

“It's funny how everybody says, ‘All it takes is one week’. You try to believe it but you don't realise it. It's true in this sport that one week can really change your life and your family's life.”

It’s a time of change in golf and Campos is unhappy with the planned change in structure on the PGA Tour for 2026, with only the top 100 players, reduced from 125, keeping full cards. Field sizes are shrinking and Monday qualifying spots are also being cut.

“I’m not a fan of it,” Campos said.

“I understand why they’re doing it, cutting time so everyone can finish and supposedly it’s for the sponsors. Then again, you’re taking away jobs from us. And it’s not easy. There’s so many thousands and thousands of unbelievable golfers that deserve to be there.”

But thanks to his Bermuda win, gone is the stress of trying to make cuts thanks to a two-year exemption, while the $1,242,000 first prize, more than he had won in his previous 53 starts on the PGA Tour combined, means that he is not worried about his new daughter’s future

“I just can't believe this is happening to me,” Campos said. “To start the year here in Hawaii and have The Masters to play is more than I could have ever dreamed.”