ATLANTA – What is it with playing solo at the Tour Championship this week?
After playing competitor J.J. Spaun withdrew during the first round on Thursday, Min Woo Lee played his final 12 holes in 6 under to shoot 8-under 62 at East Lake Golf Club. One day later, with an odd number of competitors remaining in the field, Cameron Young started tied for last and went out first as a single and shot 62 to race up the leaderboard in the FedEx Cup finale.
“It seems to be a strong pattern,” Young said. “It's a bit strange. I've never done it before. Once you kind of get over the fact that they just announced one person on the first hole, it's kind of more like a practice round. We play a lot of practice rounds just on my own. I felt like, especially with
it going well, it was really easy to keep going.”
Young, who opened with 70, went from worst to first, in about 3 hours 15 minutes. [He had the solo lead for a hot second when Min Woo Lee made an early triple bogey.]
Young, 29, opened the tournament with three bogeys in his first five holes but has overcome that terrible start by making only one in his next 31.
"I looked up," he said, "and everybody else was under par and I was kind of contemplating my life choices a little bit," Young said. “It didn’t feel awful yesterday. To shoot even and be teeing off first by yourself is wild.”
He ranked last in the field in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green and SG: Approach to Green, but claimed he was less frustrated than he has been during the past 4-5 weeks when his chili has been running hot. Young placed the blame on a balky putter that has let him down and left him with a bunch of pedestrian finishes.
“Unacceptable,” he said of his performance since his runner up at the British Open in July, “to be brutally honest.”
At the Tour Championship, he switched to a Scotty Cameron Xperimental 10.5 prototype putter that he had been toying with using for a while.
“I just pulled it out of the bag on Monday, hit a few with it, and never put the other one back,” he said.
He improved from making just 50 feet of putts in the first round to 136 feet of putts on Friday.
Whether it had anything to do with playing solo is hard to say but on Friday, Young didn’t have to wait. He didn’t have to rush. He found his rhythm and made seven birdies and an eagle. Pouring in one putt after another, he was 7 under through 11.
“I just looked up and I was in second, and I was like, 'OK, let's go,'” he said. “I didn't care what it added up to today. I felt like I was in a place where I could keep making birdies and unfortunately didn't.”
A bogey at the 12th, where he missed his first green in regulation on the day, catching a greenside bunker, stopped his momentum but he added one more highlight for the news at 11. Young smoked his tee shot 332 yards down the hill and roasted his second from 238 yards to the green. With his parents watching from black rocking chairs on the porch of the East Lake clubhouse, Young poured in a 42-foot putt for eagle and double-pumped his right fist, which qualified as a bigger celebration than any of his three career Tour titles.
“I thought it was going to go to the fringe,” he said. “It was terrible pace, but really good line.”
Then he shook hands with his caddie Kyle Sterbinksy and then took off his hat to and made a handshake with his invisible playing partner. Tradition is tradition.
Cameron Young buries a final birdie and keeps tradition alive after playing as a single 😂 pic.twitter.com/YJtVi26W7s
— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) August 28, 2026
Young had shot himself back into the tournament as he bids for his third title of the year to go with the Players Championship and Cadillac Championship he’s already bagged this season. But on a day with little wind to deal with, Young expected someone else to go low and pass him on the leaderboard.
“I think I can pat myself on the back for shooting 8-under, but that doesn't change how much work there is left to even give yourself a chance,” he said. “I don't know what the scores are going to be like today, but it feels like it's not playing too difficult for how this place can be, and I wouldn't expect really to be that close after today, frankly.”
Adam Schupak is a Golfweek senior writer covering the PGA Tour.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Cameron Young surges with 62 playing solo at Tour Championship
