PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Days (and likely months) before Cameron Young arrived on the 18th green with a chance to win The Players Championship, New PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp it predicted a grand final unlike any in the tournament’s history.
“I’m very excited,” Rolapp told NBC on Saturday. “We’ll remove the ropes on 18 when the final group comes around so fans can experience that championship moment with the leader, and hopefully, the eventual champion. It’s a tradition that I’ve heard a lot of fans want to bring back, so we’re going to do that this weekend.”
It was fitting that Rolapp’s dream of a winner’s spotlight was dashed by Young — a character whose essence deflects attention like a cockroach on a long beam. If Rolapp were to draft the antithesis of a golfer under The new, high-flying vision of the tournament Because of the consequences, the importance and the skill, Young could be the golfer he painted — a low-key, low-profile introvert who treats fame with a caution that borders on neurosis.
The young man, after all, is the golfer whose press conference was briefly interrupted Friday afternoon when he spoke so quietly that reporters standing less than five feet away couldn’t understand his response. He’s the golfer who wouldn’t dare participate (or worse, pontificate over) Rollapp porcelain press in good condition from PGA Tour headquarters on Wednesday. And he’s the golfer who could consistently be found at TPC Sawgrass in one of the places PGA Tour players don’t want to visit: The big hill behind the big clubhouse, where he spent time after multiple rounds chasing his three kids (two sons and a daughter) in endless pursuit of a big golf ball.
So who better to claim the title in Rolapp’s first race at the Tour’s biggest event of the season than Young? And how better for Young to capture the biggest win of his life than in the penultimate group, in a tournament he didn’t lead until his ball found the bottom of the 72nd hole and with a reaction that evoked less Rory McIlroy’s exhilarating spirit on the 18th at Augusta National and more Rory McIlroy’s pedestrian final four hours. leaders appeared in closing?
“I was really, really good until I had to hit an eight-inch putt on the last hole, and I almost fell apart,” Young said with a smile after finishing. “I couldn’t get my line to go anywhere near the hole, and I went and hit it anyway, which I probably shouldn’t have. But it went in, so it’s all good.”
And really all of them IS good. Without pomp and circumstance. No grand coronation. Even with little surprise from the NBC broadcast crew, who rushed to set the stage for his victory on the 18th after spending most of the afternoon preparing to oil the other two tournament contenders, Matthew Fitzpatrick or 54-hole leader Ludvig Aberg.
And yet everything was surprisingly perfect. On Sunday, The Players Championship was better than most could have imagined when the day began with Aberg as a three-shot lead and an unheralded pack of followers – and Young was a better champion than anyone at Tour HQ could have thought to start the week … and for none of the reasons they imagined.
“I mean, I love my life, I love my family, I love my job,” Young said Sunday, capturing the essence of his appeal to regular golf fans with trademark brevity. “Couldn’t ask for more.”
In the end, Young’s awkwardness in high-stakes moments and his ability to capture his emotions before they escaped his body did nothing to dampen Sunday’s excitement or story. As he approached the famous closing stage at TPC Sawgrass, locked in a battle for the biggest triumph of his career, those same “weaknesses” may have also served as strengths. With Young in the fray, it was the hero of the Bethpage Ryder Cup against one of the villains of the Ryder Cup. It was the American against the European. It was the noble and calm good guy versus the (also noble, pretty stable) bad guy.
“My expression doesn’t tend to change that much, except when I’m really upset,” he said. “I feel like that’s the only thing you’re going to get out of me out there. I’m never going to be real smiling, I’m never going to be super positive on the outside.”
What Young’s words and actions could not say, his golf did. He didn’t need an explosive reaction to know he was in for hell when he went on a painful conversation with Kyle Sterbinsky on the 16th hole and smothered his approach into the trees, leaving a 50-yard putt from a closed lie. He didn’t need a frantic fist pump when he braved the side of the flag on the 17th hole, nor an extended celebration after his 10-footer for birdie landed on the island green, to know he might have just delivered the shot of his life. He didn’t need a bicep curl after a 375-yard drive on the broom closet 18th fairway, the longest recorded drive on the hole in the ShotLink era, to know he might have broken tournament control forever. At every turn, Young’s golf told the story.
“I mean, the atmosphere in the stadium there is incredible,” he said. “The way everything has set up, you just know all eyes are on you. So there’s nowhere to hide, and I feel like I set up really well and hit a bunch of good shots those last couple of holes, so I’m really proud of that.”
In some cases, the crowd helped the drama, shouting frenzied chants “USAs they tilted their volume heavily in his direction. (“That was literally child’s play compared to Bethpage,” Fitzpatrick said later.) In others, Fitzpatrick turned up the heat, navigating the pressure of the tournament with a flurry of needle-piercing shots that pushed the stress on Young. golf, who showed Sunday that he belongs to a very small peer group when he’s at his best.
“I think a lot of people who are good at what they do expect too much of themselves,” Young said. “I’m kind of starting to learn to let them go a little bit, and like I said, just focus on where my feet are.”
In the end, the moment of victory was extremely awkward, and Young was not the champion or “golf gospel” Rolapp will spend his Tour tenure looking to find. But golf isn’t always a game of TV ratings and Meltwater Mentions; it’s often a game of how well you know yourself.
At the Players Championship, Young won as his truest self—until the party. It wasn’t Brian Rolapp’s final or the PGA Tour pictured – but hey, it was great.
You can contact the author at james.colgan@golf.com.
