He has played some of the world’s greatest courses. Pebble Beach. Shinnecock Hills. St. Andrews.

But Doug Campbell’s first touch of golf glory came in his early teens at Linden in Puyallup, where he grew up and went to high school. And earlier this month, that connection yielded a cherished honor for him.

The man who is best known around here for his longtime tenure as the head pro at Auburn Golf Course was inducted into the Pierce County Sports Hall of Fame.

“It did kind of catch me by surprise,” the 58-year-old Campbell said of his selection for the Hall, which is located inside the Tacoma Dome. “When I was 13 or 14, I won a little junior trophy at Linden.

“And a light went on.”

That light has been burning brightly ever since. Whether it was as the No. 1 man for the University of Washington, or his time on the PGA Tour, or his status as one of the premier players in the Northwest, Campbell and golf are inextricably – and happily – linked.

“I’ve just loved the game, loved being around it,” said Campbell, who now is the teaching pro at Washington National in Auburn. “If I didn’t make enough of those six-footers (on the Tour), I could still be in the industry (in another capacity).”

A two-time Northwest Player of the Year (1986 and 1990), Campbell’s trophies in this corner of the country include two Giusti Memorials, two Oregon Opens, and two Northwest PGA Championships, among others. And, in addition to those two Player of the Year honors, he was the Northwest senior champion in 2002.

He also has played on eight Hudson Cup teams. An institution in Pacific Northwest golf, the Hudson Cup matches the region’s top 10 club pros against the top 10 amateurs.

But, naturally enough, some of his fondest memories are made of his four years on the PGA Tour.

“Every day was a challenge. You were playing against the best players and playing the greatest courses – Pebble Beach, Doral, Bay Hills,” Campbell said. “It was probably the most exciting time of my life.”“If I had putted a little better, I could have made some money.”

Campbell’s best finish was a tie for sixth in the 1986 Walt Disney World Classic tournament – “It was worth about $8,000,” he said with a laugh of the significantly smaller purses in the pre-Tiger era.

But if anything stands out in Campbell’s mind, it was the 1984 British Open at St. Andrews in Scotland.

It was meant to be

For starters, it hadn’t even crossed Campbell’s mind to play in the oldest of the game’s Grand Slam events.

It did, however, occur to John Jacobs, a European teaching pro at one of whose schools Campbell was working in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“I played golf with him, and he said, ‘You have a great swing – are you still competing?’” Campbell recalled. “I said, ‘I’d like to.’

“He sent me an entry (for the Open), but I didn’t think I could afford to get over there.”

This, however, was a classic case of fate intervening. Just as Jacobs out of the blue sent him that entry form, one of the students with whom Campbell was working in Scottsdale asked him one day if he could sponsor Campbell for six months.

Just like that, Campbell was on his way to the British Open qualifying competition – 145 guys going for 17 spots. He birdied the final hole to become one of those 17 qualifiers.

He got through the first two rounds at St. Andrews – but that was all.

“I missed the cut, but just getting there was exciting,” said Campbell, who also played in the 1980 PGA Championship at Oak Hill in New York, and in the 1986 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills in New York.

In fact, ’86 was quite the year for Campbell. Besides that trip to Shinnecock Hills, he won the Oregon Open and was No. 1 in Hudson Cup points.

He also married Michelle, a union which has stretched to 21 years and counting, and now includes daughter Courtney, a graduate of Auburn High who was an All-South Puget Sound League first-team golfer in 2006, and 14-year-old son Kelly, who just finished his freshman year at Auburn Mountainview – and who, by the way, is a 3-handicapper. (Golf definitely runs in the family – Michelle is a six-time Washington Ladies Club champion.)

That also was the year he became the head pro at Auburn Golf Course, a relationship which came to a somewhat controversial end last year.

“We built our whole life around it – made a lot of friends, prided ourselves on customer service,” Campbell said. “We were all looking forward to working out of a new facility (the course’s new clubhouse). I was just disappointed the way it ended … but life goes on and we’re doing well.”

Indeed, Campbell and golf have enjoyed quite the ride together since the day of that long-ago junior trophy at Linden.

“When I was 14, my dad took me to see the Seattle Open,” Campbell said of the PGA Tour event that had a brief life in the area in the 1960s. “I got to meet Arnold Palmer. And I said, ‘I think I want to do that someday.’”

For Doug Campbell, someday eventually led to Pebble Beach. Shinnecock Hills. St. Andrews. It led to Auburn and Washington National.

It even led to a Hall of Fame.