Miami (AFP) – Cameron Young rode a hot putter to an eight-under par 64 on Thursday to take a one-shot first-round lead in the PGA Tour Cadillac Championship. “I feel like I made a billion feet of putts,” said Young, who had eight birdies without a bogey and was rolling them in from on and off the green. “Every time my ball got near the hole it seemed to want to go in today,” he said.
Young was one stroke ahead of three-time major champion Jordan Spieth and fellow American Alex Smalley. Young, who won the Players Championship in March and contended at the Masters before finishing tied for third behind Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, got his round going with a birdie at the second, where he landed his approach inches from the pin. He rolled in a 41-foot birdie at the fourth and after another short birdie at the fifth made a 28-foot birdie putt from off the green at seven.
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Birdies at 10 and 11 were followed by another 25-foot birdie putt from off the green at 15, and after he took a one-shot lead with a birdie at 16, he made a testing six-foot par putt at 17 to maintain the advantage. “I saw a few go in early and it was just one of those days,” Young said. “I just had a really nice feel for the greens today.”
Young, who won the first of his two PGA Tour titles to date at the Wyndham Championship in August, has three top-five finishes this year and has climbed to number four in the world. Spieth holed out for eagle at the eighth to highlight his round. He was eight-under through 15 but made his second bogey of the day at 16.
“It was a very nice start,” said Spieth, who was seven-under through 11 and said he took advantage early when the breeze was minimal and the greens were soft. “I don’t foresee seven-unders every day,” Spieth said. “I knocked a couple putts in from the fringe which is a bonus and the rest of the round I just played really the right way.”
Smalley, chasing his first PGA Tour title, had eight birdies and one bogey, seizing his share of second with birdies at 16 and 17. Canadian Nick Taylor was alone in fourth after a six-under 66, but world number one Scottie Scheffler got off to a disappointing start with three birdies and two bogeys in a one-under 71 that left him seven off the pace.
The $20 million signature event marks the PGA Tour’s return to the Blue Monster course at Trump National Doral for the first time since 2016. The venue had featured on the PGA Tour calendar for more than half a century, hosting a tournament annually from 1962 to 2016 when it staged the World Golf Championships Cadillac Championship. The tournament was moved after sponsor Cadillac decided not to renew its sponsorship and a replacement could not be found.
The PGA Tour, which had been sharply critical of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign rhetoric concerning immigrants, relocated the event to Mexico — prompting a furious reaction from Trump at the time. Since then, Doral had hosted a stop in the breakaway LIV Golf circuit.
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