Cameron Young’s meeting with President Trump wins the ‘unique’ Cadillac
It was no ordinary competition on Sunday for Cameron Young.
He entered the final round of the Cadillac Championship at Trump National Doral with a six-stroke lead. He called himself a penalty for causing his ball to move before hitting his shot on the second hole. “It’s just that, your heart sinks when you see it move, but it moved and that’s part of what golf is about,” Young said of the penalty call. He responded by hitting a 13-footer for par, and no player, not even World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who finished second, was a close sixth as Young earned his third win and second of the season.
But Young’s Doral Sunday was different not only in how it happened and how he drove the Signature Event field, but also because President Donald Trump made an appearance for the final round of the PGA Tour back at his Florida championship course. That meant extra security and, for Young, a meeting with the Secret Service to start the day, as well as a handshake, thumbs-up and interview with President Trump at the end.
“Absolutely not. No,” Young said after his win when asked if it felt like a normal Sunday. “I mean, once you’re out there you’re doing your job. But everything leading up to that, you know, this place is obviously crawling with Secret Service and security and police, and it has a really different feel.”
Young said he tried to enter the side door of the clubhouse, which he had been using all week, and was stopped by two members of the United States Secret Service, who told him that the door was not used today with Trump present.
“So there are little things like this that are obviously different for the President here, and it changed the rhythm of the day a little to start,” said Young.
Championship Sundays have a different cadence and feel. The weather threw things off right from the start. The PGA Tour has moved tee times and has players go threesomes from the split tee to avoid expected bad weather. The final round is still delayed for more than an hour. The added security made the final day feel even more unfamiliar.
But as time went on, Young proceeded to put Scheffler and the rest of the field to sleep.
“Every time I’ve played him, I’ve always been impressed with his game,” Scheffler said of Young after the round. “He hit a lot of quality shots this week. A lot of quality iron shots, quality shots, especially on the holes where it matters the most. There are tough shots here that are very difficult, and then he got up and hit the shots. On the green, he was unbelievable this week. The first 27 holes, I don’t think he really missed anything. It was a lot of fun when he was shooting. A lot of putts, that’s the way to run away from a golf tournament.”
After Young birdied the second hole, he birdied Nos. 3, 5 and 8 to finish at 3-under 33 and close out the tournament. Even bogeys on 11 and 13 didn’t give Scheffler and the rest of the chasers hope. When Young made back-to-back birdies on 15 and 16, all that remained were Doral’s final holes and a brief meeting with the President.
“It’s very different,” Young said of meeting President Trump after his win. “He is nothing if not a very interesting person, he has a lot of energy, and it is an honor to play in front of him.
“He was very complimentary, the way he, you know, I’ve been lucky enough to meet him before, and that’s especially for us golfers, something he loves and I think he’s very appreciative of how good everyone is on the PGA TOUR. So it’s a great fit, and I thanked him for holding us, and that was about it.”
This week marks the first time in ten years that the PGA Tour has hosted a tournament at Trump National Doral. It’s a course that Young is happy to have back in the program and will be looking forward to returning to next season as the defending champion.
“It’s definitely a big, tough golf course,” Young said. “That’s what I think most of us like here. For me personally, I prefer a difficult golf course to an easy one, I think. That’s the kind of golf I like. … I like to have one place on the schedule that goes over that golf course.”
Last year, Cameron Young was still searching for his first PGA Tour win. He had knocked on the door several times but failed to kick it down. He changed caddies, changed balls and changed his flight. He then won the Wyndham Championship in August, became the best player on the USA Ryder Cup team and beat Matt Fitzpatrick to win the Players Championship.
This week, he completed the Blue Monster to secure his third PGA Tour victory and will now be one of the favorites to win the PGA Championship at Aronimink in two weeks.
“Of course it is,” Young said of how his win at Wyndham opened things up for him. “Once you’ve done it once, I think it’s easy to do it again. But at the same time, golf hasn’t changed that much. I think I’ve been improving a little bit, I think, in all different areas of the game. I think I’m a lot better everywhere than I was last year. That’s the goal, just keep getting better and better, and I think they’ve been great to come together in the last few weeks. You’ve finished second, third, fifth, when you had a chance to win and you didn’t.”
Cameron Young hasn’t changed much in the past year. But his standing in the professional golf ranks has, and an incident after his Doral reign was testament to the difference 12 months can make.
