Cameron Young strikes early and late for share of the Masters lead

AUGUSTA, Ga. | When Rory McIlroy imploded, Cameron Young pounced.

The result is that the 90th Masters Tournament will not be a coronation walk through the azaleas and pines of the Augusta National Golf Club for McIlroy, the defending champion who sprinted to a six-shot lead through 36 holes.

Young, who won The Players Championship on March 15 in dramatic fashion, will have a say in the outcome, and he's brimming with quiet confidence about the prospect of following McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler in winning a Players and Masters in the same year after he carved out a career-best 65 at Augusta during the third round on April 11 to earn a share of the lead with McIlroy (73) at 11-under 205.

"It would be an incredible day," Young said if he should find a way to win the Masters to make it three years in a row for the Players champion to go on to win at Augusta. "I like the position I'm in. It's just a matter of keeping myself in it tomorrow and doing the best I can to stay around the lead for as long as possible, and see what happens at the end."

Cameron Young opened with improbable birdies

Young began the day eight shots behind McIlroy at 4-under and was not on a short list of possibilities should the defending champ falter. The smart money was on McIlroy's playing partner Sam Burns or the players in the previous twosome, 2018 Masters champion Patrick Reed and Justin Rose, who lost in a playoff to McIlroy last year.

But Young flew under the radar in the final round of The Players when Ludvig Åberg was poised to cruise on the final day and this time he didn't wait, pouncing on move day.

Young fired a huge opening salvo, driving the green of the 350-yard par-4 third hole to set up an easy two-putt for birdie.

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Then came another startling development.

Young said he and his caddie Kyle Sterbinsky misjudged the tee shot at the long par-3 fourth hole, which was playing downwind. Young then put too low a trajectory on the ball and it went over the green and came to rest 72 feet from the hole.

Cameron Young hits his approach shot into the first hole of the Augusta National Golf Club on April 11 during the third round of the Masters Tournament.

"Hit the wrong shot," Young said. "I hit kind of a lower shot and those are just going to bounce. There was a little bit more downwind than we thought so everything just added up to that one bouncing and rolling much farther than we anticipated."

No matter. Young merely pitched in for a birdie, then almost apologized for it.

"It's not the most difficult pitch out here," he said with a slight smile. "I was trying to get it close but it was probably going to go 6 feet by. Then it hit the flagstick and went in."

Young takes lead with birdie-bogey swing

Young then made a series of more routine birdies to keep climbing the leaderboard and getting closer to McIlroy with each one. He birdied Nos. 7, 8, 10, 13 and 14, all on putts of 8 feet or less. He got a huge break when his tee shot at No. 13 glanced off a branch, keeping it from going into Rae's Creek and kicking the ball into the fairway.

Playing partner Jason Day, who didn't have a bad performance himself with a 68 to get into a tie for fifth, gave Young his propers.

"I was just tying to keep up with him," Day said.

Young had a setback when his third shot at the par-5 15th hole spun back into the water, leading to his first bogey in 23 holes.

But five twosomes behind him, McIlroy hit his second shot into the water at No. 11 and took a double bogey. Minutes later, Young drained a 25-foot birdie putt at the par-3 16th for a piece of the lead, and while he was playing the 17th hole, McIlroy bogeyed the 12th to hand Young the lead McIlroy had held since early in the second round.

McIlroy went back in front with birdies at Nos. 14 and 15, but bogeyed the 17th and it was tied again.

Young got another huge break at No. 17 when his tee shot hit the branch of a tree on the right and kicked back into the fairway, and he went on to make a 5-foot par putt. He hit his 12th fairway and 16th green of the day at No. 18 for another two-putt par to save his spot in the final twosome with McIlroy.

The two were grouped in the first two rounds.

Young gladly accepted the two breaks with tree branches at Nos. 13 and 17, plus another gift at No. 9 when his second shot hit a patron behind the green, with the ball skidding back onto the putting surface.

"You'll take anything you can get," he said. "We all get enough bad breaks. Not that I'm owed anything but when they do start going your way, take them and keep going because they're not always going to."

Players experience will help Young

Young began the final round of The Players four shots behind Aberg and took advantage of the latter's meltdown to turn the back nine into a battle with Matt Fitzpatrick, which Young won by one shot with a birdie-par finish and Fitzpatrick's bogey at the last.

It's an experience Young is positive he can draw from on an Augusta Sunday.

"It's great to have won," he said. of winning his first two Tour titles within 10 starts, the Wyndham Championship in August of 2025 and The Players, plus the confidence of going 3-1 for the U.S. in the Ryder Cup. "That guarantees me absolutely nothing moving forward. My past results won't dictate what I do tomorrow. I do feel there's a lot of positive things to take from those events. I've got to earn whatever I get out of tomorrow and the best way that I known to do is attack the day like I have the last three."

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Players champion Cameron Young pounces to grab share of Masters lead