Cameron Young grabbed his second PGA TOUR title of the season with an impressive wire-to-wire victory at the inaugural Cadillac Championship.
The 28-year-old American, who took home THE PLAYERS Championship title in March, entered the final round at Trump National Doral with a healthy six-shot lead over the chasing pack but suffered an early stutter by having to call a penalty on himself at the 2nd after causing his ball to move at address. However, despite the early jitters, Young kept his cool and went on to extend his advantage to seven by the end of the front nine thanks to birdies on the third, fifth, and eight.
Fellow American Ben Griffin looked the most threatening to Young on the back nine when he sunk successive birdies at the 15th and 16th to cut the gap to five. But Young didn’t feel the heat as he made sure his lead returned to six with birdies of his own on the same two holes. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler produced a late surge with three birdies in his final four holes but it was too little too late as Young closed with a 4-under 68 to end the week on 19 under having not relinquished the lead once to become the first player since Andy Bean in 1977 to achieve this feat at Doral.
It is Young’s third career triumph on the PGA TOUR and the second largest victory on the circuit this season. The victory also moves him up to No. 3 on the Official World Golf Rankings.
“I think the self-belief just continues to build,” Young said. “I put myself in plenty of good places over the course of the last four, five years. Recently, I’ve started to come out on the better side of it.
“So, yeah, just excited for the next few weeks and moving on toward Charlotte and the PGA.”
Scheffler’s late birdie run helped him card a final-round 68 and finish on 13 under, enough to lift him to the summit of the FedExCup standings. However, his struggles with the putter remained evident.
“I felt like I couldn’t really get anything going,” Scheffler said. “I was hitting it decent enough. Just putts were going kind of around the hole. Tough to get a lot of momentum. I hit it pretty nicely to start, just didn’t hole the putts I needed to.
“I made a little bit of a sloppy bogey on hole nine, where I felt like I hit a good bunker shot and a good putt, and just little stuff like that. I just didn’t really get enough momentum going. Wasn’t hitting it close enough and wasn’t holing those 15 to 20-footers when I needed them.”
Griffin’s bogey at the last meant he dropped down to third on 12 under while there was a three-way tie for fourth between Australia’s Adam Scott, Austria’s Sepp Straka, and Korea’s Si Woo Kim all on 11 under.
What is the next event?
The next events on the PGA TOUR schedule are the Truist Championship (Quail Hollow Club in North Carolina) and the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic (Dunes Golf and Beach Club in South Carolina) both taking place between 7-10 May.