Nobody was catching Cameron Young this week in Miami.
Young, after building up a dominant lead over the first two days, rolled to a six-shot win to claim the Cadillac Championship. Young started the final round at Trump National Doral with a six-shot advantage and cruised to his 4-under 68.
The win marked just the third of Young’s career, but his second in the past three months. He went wire-to-wire at the event, which marked the Tour’s first stop back at Doral in a decade, without a single tie. It marked the second-largest win on Tour so far this season, behind only Justin Rose’s seven-shot win at Torrey Pines, and matched the largest win at Doral in Tour history.
“I think when the golf course is difficult, when the conditions are difficult, that tend[s] to make it easier for me mentally,” Young said. “That's a big part of keeping yourself in it out here. It's difficult with the wind and the conditions were pretty benign today, but it is still a hard golf course and thankfully I was able to stay where my feet were and hit a bunch of good shots.”
Young opened the week with a bogey-free 64 to take the lead from the jump. By Friday night, after he carded his first bogey of the weekend, Young had already built up a five-shot lead. His first 36 holes were nearly perfect.
From there, Young really just had to hang on. He got to 15-under after a 2-under 70 on Saturday, and then briefly pushed his lead to seven on Sunday at the turn. While he made two quick bogeys on the back nine, Young offset them easily and rolled to the win without any issue.
He even drove the green at the tough par-4 16th, taking it straight over the water and past the several bunkers that sit in front of the putting surface, to set up a simple two-putt birdie. That set up his easy finish down the stretch.
But perhaps the best shot of the day came from top-ranked Scottie Scheffler, who somehow managed to take his completely plugged ball in the bunker at the 16th and set it up right next to the hole.
That was one of three straight birdies that Scheffler made late. He finished alone in second at 13-under, which marked his third straight start in which he’s finished in second. Ben Griffin fell back to third with a bogey at the last to close out his 68.
Young even called himself for a one-shot penalty on his front nine after his ball moved slightly forward in the fairway. Nobody noticed it happen on the second hole in the moment, but he immediately called it out. Officials then determined that his actions caused the ball to move, which led him to the one-shot penalty.
Remarkably, Young still made par.
“It's just one of those, your heart sinks when you see it move, but it moved and that's part of what golf's about,” Young said. “There was no one that was going to give me a penalty there but myself, and I think I had about four of those on the PGA Tour now, so I need to start setting the club down a little softer.
“But yeah just one of those times. I mean, I wasn't going to look the other way and say it didn't move when it rolled over an inch forward, so just unfortunate, but handled it really well.”
This has been a dominant stretch of golf for Young, who won The Players Championship earlier this season in what was easily the biggest win of his career. He entered the final round at the Masters with a share of the lead after rallying back to catch Rory McIlroy, but McIlroy ended up claiming the green jacket at Augusta National.
Young, who entered the week at No. 4 in the Official World Golf Rankings, has now finished T7 or better in five of his last six starts. He’s one of just three golfers to win both The Players and Doral in the same season in history, and the first since Tiger Woods.
Though Young has yet to win a major championship in his career, he is playing as well and consistent as anybody in the world over the last few months. It feels like it’s only a matter of time before Young breaks through for that next career milestone.
