Cameron Young started this Masters cold. Now there is no hotter player
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Professional golfers are less predictable, almost like publicly traded companies. They have styles, patterns, trends, runs. Cameron Young, the oldest 28-year-old you’d expect to meet, is trending toward the Champions Locker Room on the second floor at Augusta National.
He finished second at the British Open in St. Andrews in 2022. He played amazingly and wonderfully in last year’s Ryder Cup. Last month he won the Players Championship. Young — a native New Yorker who attended Wake Forest and lives in South Florida with his wife and children — is playing in his fifth Masters. Through 54 holes of this one, these are his six nine-hole scores: 40-33; 34-33; 32-33. For those of you into trends, patterns, trends and the like, there’s a lot out there.
He’s not going to be 80 on Sunday. You don’t want to say there is no chance, except that there is no chance.
Cam Young would have no first hand knowledge of this, as he was born a month before the blessed event, but at the 1997 Masters Tiger Woods went 40 on Thursday – and won by 12. This is Cam Young, with his dark beard and serious posture and smash-bang downswing – another great round of doing the same, starting Thursday night with a coat fit shot. His rounds are 73, 67 and 65. You won’t wilt in the Sunday heat here, not the actual heat (mid-80s during the day), not the figurative heat.
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CBS can’t ignore him, Rory McIlroy can’t, we golf kooks can’t ignore him. McIlroy and Young are joint leaders for the 90th Masters, both at 11 under par. They will play in the final on Sunday afternoon, which starts at 2:25. You will be seeing a lot of both. Sam Burns, who has been pushed back, will have to earn his tube time.
These Masters Sundays are long, and Cam Young’s three kids are under four. His Sunday will start the week, followed by a trip to the physio, the range, the lounge, the putting green, the first tee and the best chance he’s had (so far) of his first professional manager. In high school, he won titles in the Catholic League. He attended Fordham Prep, a Jesuit school. His father is the principal at Sleepy Hollow, a classic rowing course in Westchester County. A young person does not do pranks, jokes, magic tricks. He is refreshingly aggressive and direct. “I don’t get the idea that I will be the fans’ favorite,” he said on Saturday morning while talking to reporters.
He played with McIlroy on Thursday and Friday – he knows firsthand how popular McIlroy is here. When McIlroy played in Sunday’s final at the Open at the Old Course, Young was two places ahead of McIlroy. He could hear singing and singing to McIlroy there, too. On Saturday afternoon at last year’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, Young and Justin Thomas played (and lost) McIlroy and Shane Lowry. Young heard verbal abuse from overzealous fans directed at McIlroy. Young got his recognition about fan bias.
But these things can be unexpected, too, even at Augusta National, where spectators are famously knowledgeable and respectful. But in 1991, when Wales’ Ian Woosnam scored a victory alongside Tom Watson in the final team, the fans were clearly cheering him on. That won’t happen on Sunday for these Mastazis, but the fans love the underdog and they love the novelty and they love the back nine with so much tension that you feel cool without playing a shot.
While playing late at the Players on Sunday, Young said he was preparing to play Sunday at the Masters. And now that Sunday is here.
McIlroy, who won the 2025 Players, was asked to compare Sunday at the 2025 Masters with Sunday at the 2026 Masters.
“I’d like to think I’m going to play a little more relaxed and I’m going to play like I already have the green jacket, which I do,” McIlroy said.
“I think the pairing will be easy,” McIlroy said. Last year, in the final, McIlroy played against Bryson DeChambeau. He took her out of the cold, start to finish. “The atmosphere will be easy, I played with Cam in the first two days and I played with him again [on Sunday]. I think it’s a comfortable team for both of us.”
Of course, a comfortable pairing does not predict a comfortable day. And past performance does not predict future results. But Sunday looks good. You can double it on Sunday.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.
