Augusta (United States) (AFP) – Cameron Young will try to cement his hard-won status among golf’s elite with a first major title on Sunday, when he’ll start the final round of the Masters tied for the lead with Rory McIlroy. Young carded an impressive seven-under par 65 on Saturday, his best score in 15 career Masters rounds, giving him a 54-hole total of 11-under par and a solid shot at the biggest title of his career.
“It’s something I’ve dreamed of doing for a long time,” said Young, who started the day eight shots off defending champion McIlroy’s lead and birdied four of the first eight holes. He rolled in an eight-foot birdie putt at the 10th and produced back-to-back birdies at 13 and 14. A weak wedge found the water at the 15th, but he followed that bogey with a 27-foot birdie putt at the 16 and briefly held the solo lead as McIlroy faltered behind him.
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It’s not where he expected to find himself when he bogeyed four of the first seven holes on Thursday. “If you had said on Thursday at about noon that I was going to be within a couple of the lead going into Sunday, I would have taken it in a heartbeat, especially given the fact that I was watching Rory play,” he said. “We saw today a slow start and a hot start can erase a lot. 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.”
But Young is not surprised to be contending after a “slow buildup” that started with his first PGA Tour title at the Wyndham Championship last August and continued through a strong Ryder Cup showing and a triumph in the Players Championship last month. “I feel that I’ve gotten a lot better at just being present in what I’m doing,” Young said. “Out here that’s so much of the battle. You’re going to get good breaks, you’re going to get bad ones. You’re going to hit a bad shot or two. The ability to just swallow it and move on and go hit your next shot, the emotions of it, the frustration, whatever it may be, I think this place really punishes you if you play angry or impatient.”
Young has contended in majors before. He has two top-10 Masters showings in the past three years and finished second at the Open Championship in 2022. He knows that momentum can shift in a heartbeat on Augusta’s fiery greens. He said he’ll draw on those experiences, as well as his recent Players victory, but will go out with the mindset that he has to take the title. “My past results don’t dictate what I do tomorrow,” Young said. “While I do feel that there’s a lot of positive things to take from those events, I’ve got to go earn whatever I get out of tomorrow, and the best way that I know to do that is kind of try to attack the day like I have the last three.”
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