RIDGELAND, S.C. – Cameron Young now has a trophy to hold as a reward for his impressive debut campaign on the PGA TOUR. Young, a five-time runner-up last season, received the Arnold Palmer Award on Wednesday as the 2022 PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year. Both Young and Palmer were Wake Forest alums, and another former Demon Deacon, Webb Simpson, delivered the trophy to Young, as did Sungjae Im, the 2019 Palmer Award winner. Simpson and Im playfully stepped through a side entrance in the media center and interrupted the start to Young’s pre-tournament press conference at THE CJ CUP in South Carolina to deliver the news. With his parents watching from the back of the room, Young sat in his chair and grinned, never before so thrilled to be interrupted. Young follows his former Wake Forest roommate, Will Zalatoris, in winning the award. It is the first time players from the same school have won the top rookie award back-to-back. “Well, it’s very special,” said Young, who had a pair of third-place performances (including the PGA Championship) to go with his five runner-up showings, which included a solo second at the Open Championship. Young finished 18th in the final FedExCup standings. “I know the namesake Arnold Palmer obviously was a giant in the game of golf and we have him to thank for a lot of what we do today, what the PGA TOUR is,” he said. “To be related to that in some small way is very cool. I know we had a very strong rookie class and I know it’s voted by my peers, so it’s a huge honor to be thought of in that way, just to kind of finish the year that way.” Young said his season’s proudest moment was finishing second at the 150th Open Championship at storied St. Andrews. He drove the green and eagled the 72nd hole to shoot 65 on Sunday – including a blistering back nine of 31 – but still got clipped by another Cameron, Australia’s Cameron Smith. “They love golf over there,” Young said. “And to walk into kind of the town center to play the 18th hole at St. Andrews is different than anything you find anywhere else. So just knowing the history there, and to play well that week, was very cool.” It was a trip to Scotland and St. Andrews a decade earlier that had sparked Young’s love for the game. At that point, young Cameron, 13, was more into hockey and baseball than golf. But he and his parents – his father, David Young, who recently retired after a 21-year run as head professional at Sleepy Hollow Country Club in New York, and mother, Barb Jones, an avid golfer – visited North Berwick, Gullane, Crail and St. Andrews. It rained for four days. David has pictures of Cam, cold and wet, wearing his father’s rain jacket, which went to his knees. “I’m thinking, after this trip, this kid is never going to want to play golf again,” David said last spring at the PGA Championship. “But it did just the opposite. It got him excited about it. … He decided that golf was going to be his main sport, and he started working hard at it.” Young finished second in Strokes Gained: Off-The-Tee in the 2022 season, third in driving distance (319.3 yards) and was sixth in birdie average. In addition to finishing solo second at the Open, Young tied for second at the Sanderson Farms Championship, Genesis Invitational, Wells Fargo Championship and Rocket Mortgage Classic. He finished the season on the winning U.S. Team at the Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow. There is a lot for him to build upon moving forward. David Young, his son’s only teacher, said Wednesday there were two keys to his son’s successful season. For one, he improved his driving, adding more accuracy to his prodigious length; and secondly, he tightened up his short game, spending more time on chipping and putting. David traces that to the 2021 RSM Classic, where it was windy and it was tough to hit greens. Young watched his fellow competitors chipping to tap-in range while he would leave himself 5- and 6-footers for par. “It kind of made an impression on us that we need to put a little more time into that,” David said. “It paid some dividends.” Scottie Scheffler, now World No. 1, was the TOUR’s Rookie of the Year in 2020 without winning a tournament, and now he’s a four-time winner and major champion. He thinks big things are ahead for Young. “I’m sure you’ll see him have a breakout year and win a couple of times, be on the top of some leaderboards again,” Scheffler said Wednesday. “He hits it hard, he’s very confident. “With the way he drives the ball, there is no course on TOUR that he can’t compete on. He hits it as far as anybody and hits it as solid as anybody. He’s one of those guys when you see him with a hot putter one week, he’s going to be right there at the top of the leaderboard.” Young’s first PGA TOUR victory doesn’t feel far away. On Wednesday, he still got to lift a trophy, a well-deserved reward for an impressive season.
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