Cameron Young felt like he made 'a billion feet of putts,' leads at Doral

DORAL, Fla. — If Cameron Young’s putter was as hot during the final round of the Masters as it was on Thursday in the opening round of the Cadillac Championship, he’d be wearing a Green Jacket instead of Rory McIlroy.

On a warm, sunny day, Young needed oven mitts to hold his putter. He holed nearly 100 feet of putts, made eight birdies and was perfect in scrambling on his way to a bogey-free 8-under 64 at Trump National Doral’s Blue Monster to take a one-shot lead over Jordan Spieth.

“I saw a few go in early and it was one of those days,” said Young, who tied his lowest score of the year on the PGA Tour. “I just had a really nice feel for the greens today.”

Young, the winner of the Players Championship in March, already has three top-5 finishes this season and has surged to No. 3 in the world. Last season, he turned his putting from a weakness into a strength. This season, his improved iron play has keyed his latest leap forward. Young is the only player on the Tour to rank outside the Top 100 in SG: Approach-the-Green (129th), greens in regulation (159th), and proximity to hole (T141) in 2025 and inside the top 20 this season in all three categories in 2026 (SG: Approach-the-Green (18th), GIR (T15), and proximity to hole (2nd)). At the Wyndham Championship in August, which happened to be the week of his first career win, Young switched to a Titleist Pro V1x prototype (Double Dot), which gave him better distance control with his irons and wedges.

“I think it started then probably,” he said. “That's been a big factor.”

Young blamed his putter, a Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.5 prototype, for holding him back at the Masters, where he finished T-3 after a final-round 73. He fiddled with a different version of the Phantom, the 12, earlier this week but said the equipment reps are still trying to get the right neck for him and he was never close to benching his gamer. Why would he? He gained more than 2½ strokes on the field on the greens and ranked second in Strokes Gained: Putting. It didn’t hurt that he poured in a 42-footer for birdie at the fourth, a 28-footer at No. 7 and 25-footer at 15. He also was 8-for-8 in scrambling, making a clutch 6-footer at 17 to keep the card clean.

“I feel like I made a billion feet of putts, which I think works most places,” Young said. “Every time my ball got near the hole it seemed to want to go in today.”

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: