‘Pros For A Purpose’ player ticketing initiative supporting AT&T Byron Nelson, Charles Schwab Challenge charities

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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BRADENTON, Fla. — Collin Morikawa shook off an early mistake and played a steady hand on a golf course known for calamity, closing with a 3-under 69 for a three-shot victory in the World Golf Championships-Workday Championship at The Concession. RELATED: Leaderboard | Winner’s Bag: Collin Morikawa Morikawa picked up a few short-game tips from major champions — Mark O’Meara on his putting, Concession member Paul Azinger on the chipping — and he says it carried him to another big win. And there was a tribute to Tiger Woods, his golf idol growing up. “We don’t say `Thank you’ enough,” Morikawa said, referring to how much Woods has raised the profile and prize money in golf. He also mentioned his grandfather dying a month ago and began to get emotional. Morikawa won by three over Brooks Koepka (70), Viktor Hovland (67) and Billy Horschel (70). He finished at 18-under 270 and became the 24th player to win a major and a World Golf Championships title since this series began in 1999. He joined Woods as the only players to win both before turning 25. There were red numbers on the board and on the golf course, with several players wearing red shirts and black pants — the Sunday colors of Woods — as a show of support as Woods recovers from leg injuries from his car crash in Los Angeles last Tuesday. “Red and black, we know that’s what Tiger does on Sundays, so just to join in and just let Tiger know we’re supporting him in the best way we can,” Tony Finau said. “We’re still playing and we miss him out here, but it was cool just to be a part of that.” Morikawa didn’t have the colors, but he had the game. So many times on Sunday, Woods had the lead and forced everyone to catch him. Outside of a chunked chip on the second hole that made him scramble for bogey, Morikawa didn’t miss a fairway the rest of the way and was rarely out of position. Horschel caught Morikawa after three holes and tried to stay with him. Koepka had the last good chance to catch him until he three-putted for par from 35 feet on the par-5 17th hole. Hovland, who finished his second round with a quadruple bogey, might have had the best chance of all. Hovland someone managed to punch out of the wire grass and onto the green to make birdie on the par-5 13th, his seventh birdie of the round that pulled him with one shot. His hopes effectively ended on the next hole. Just as Morikawa was pouring in an 8-foot birdie putt on the short par-4 12th hole, Hovland ran his 40-foot birdie putt some 15 feet past the hole on the par-3 14th, and missed the par putt. Morikawa’s lead was back to three shots, and he never flinched the rest of the day. Scottie Scheffler also was in the mix with six birdies in 12 holes. He followed a bogey from the bunker on the 14th with another birdie to stay close, only to hit his tee shot into the water on the 16th hole to make double bogey. Scheffler still shot a 68 and finished alone in fifth. Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed, both dressed in red and black, never got anything going. McIlroy closed with a 71 to tie for sixth, while Reed shot a 72 and to finish another spot back. “I think just for everyone to show their appreciation for what he means to us out here,” McIlroy said of the tribute. “If there was no Tiger Woods, I just the think the TOUR and the game of golf in general would be in a worse place. He’s meant a lot to us, he still does mean a lot to us and I think that was just a little way to show that.” Reed won this WGC last year in Mexico City. It was moved for this year to Concession because of COVID-19 circumstances.

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