PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – Call it the zone, call it in the flow, call it sleep-deprived with a 2-month-old son, Henry, or whatever you want, but Cameron Young was in it on Friday. He wrapped up a sizzling 9-under 62 at Riviera Country Club on Friday with four consecutive birdies on the front nine.
“I didn’t really even realize it until kind of I tapped in on 9,” Young said.
Caddie Scott McKean echoed that sentiment. “When he gets hot, he’s so hot. It’s hard to stop him,” McKean said. “Birdied the last four and forgot what we were doing basically. He gets in a flow state.”
The 62, one off the course record, combined with a 5-under 66 on Thursday lifted him to a 36-hole total of 14-under 128 and two strokes behind the leader, Joaquin Niemann.
“We said early on, ‘Joaquin, we’re coming.’ He kept running away. I made a birdie. He’d make an eagle,” Young said.
Here are six things to know about Young, a 24-year-old rookie out of Wake Forest University:
Born into the game
Young is a native of Scarborough, New York, where his father, David, is director of golf at Sleepy Hollow Country Club, one of the great courses in the country, but we digress. (Young’s mom is a stick, too.) Young showed promise from a young age, becoming the youngest winner of the Carter Cup in 2011 as well as MGA Junior champion. He was named MGA Player of the Year in 2015, twice won the prestigious Ike, and claimed the Westchester (NY) Golf Association Amateur title too.
Young had the grades to go to Stanford but chose Wake Forest, where he received the Lanny Wadkins Scholarship. He joked that he wasn’t good enough for the Arnold Palmer Scholarship, which went to his teammate Will Zalatoris. This weekend, Young will have a chance to break Wadkins’ tournament records of 20 under and 264 total that have lasted nearly 30 years.
After winning twice as a freshman at the U.S. Collegiate Championship and the Warrior Princeville Makai Invitational, Young returned in the fall with a list of nine changes he wanted to make to his swing.
Haas said, “We can make you look better, but is it really going to be better?”
Before implementing any changes, Haas checked in with Young’s dad, the architect of Cameron’s swing. It was about 9 o’clock when the club pro answered and he had worked a long day. When Haas explained the situation, Young answered, “That’s why I sent him there. Whatever you want to do is good.”
“It was like a 45-second conversation,” Haas remembered. “I hung up thinking that’s a good Dad there.”
Young went on to be an All-Atlantic Coast selection three times (2017-2019).
Riviera experience
Young is a rookie on the PGA Tour but he has experience playing here at Riviera. He made it to match play in the 2017 U.S. Amateur before losing in the Round of 64 to Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre, who also made the cut this week. Young was a contestant in the 2018 Genesis Invitational Showcase, playing alongside Wake alum Bill Haas. He failed to earn a spot in the field but the experience was important to him.
“Oh, that was an awesome day. Played with Bill Haas, who’s a phenomenal guy. He was so nice to me and still is today. Just watching him work his way around the golf course, I mean, I felt like I hit a bunch of good shots that day, I think I shot about 76. Watching him, he didn’t play his best that day but he scraped it around and probably shot even or 1 under, which out here is never a bad round. Just to be around a place like this that’s such a top-tier golf course set up the way it is for the tournament, it’s always a learning experience whenever you get to play somewhere that hard with someone that knows what they’re doing.”
On Monday, Young switched roles and was the professional in the Collegiate Showcase alongside Wake student Michael Brennan, who shot the low score to earn an exemption into the tournament.
Earning his way to the PGA Tour the hard way
After turning pro in 2019, Young had only status on the Mackenzie Tour in 2020, but that tour canceled its season due to the pandemic. He had to Monday Qualify into Korn Ferry Tour events. On his fifth try, he shot 64 and made it into the Pinnacle Bank Championship in Omaha, Nebraska, and strung together a bunch of top-25 finishes to keep playing. After beginning the season with no status, he finished the combined 2020-21 season No. 17 in the points standings. He won the AdventHealth Championship and Evans Scholars Invitational in back-to-back weeks.
‘Explosive’
That’s the word Wake Coach Jerry Haas used to describe Young’s game. Young is a bomber, averaging 320.5 yards off the tee, ranking second on the PGA Tour this season. On Monday, he told Haas his 7-wood was carrying 265 yards on a fast and firm Riviera track. “His caddie was telling me if there is a run out of 350 yards he can’t hit driver,” Haas said. “I never had that problem.”
“He’s very aggressive,” Haas added. “He’s like most players, he thinks he can hit every shot and therefore he tries it.” Even Young noted in his post-round comments that he’s learning to play more conservatively and that’s helped him already this week.
“If he putts good and gets hot, he’s not afraid to keep it going,” Haas said. “He won’t be afraid this weekend. He’ll do great.”
Mississippi Magic
In his fifth start as a rookie, Young finally made his first PGA Tour cut at the Sanderson Farms Championship and did so in fine fashion, finishing second and earning the largest check of his young career ($627,000). He texted Haas 45 minutes before the final round and said, “If I’m clean today, I’ll win.”
Haas was struck by how special it was to hear from one of his former players just before the heat of competition. “How many kids text their college coach 45 minutes before they tee off in the final round?”
Afterward, Young texted, “I wasn’t clean today.” But next time, he might be.
“That makes you know that it’s possible to win out here,” Young said of what he learned from being in the hunt at Sanderson Farms. “Not that we didn’t believe that in the first place, but having evidence of it is never bad.”
Young bleeds pinstripes
On his left shoulder, Young wears the logo of Major League Baseball. That’s a pretty cool sponsorship opportunity that usually comes with access to any MLB park. So, who’s his team?
“I’ve always been a Yankees fan. Played a bit growing up. I don’t follow it as closely now, but I was always a Yankees fan growing up,” he said.