Cameron Young’s major breakthrough feels closer than ever after British Open runner-up

SOUTHPORT, England – On the Saturday evening before The Open Championship, Cameron Young's caddie Kyle Sterbinsky had bigger concerns than his own travel plans.

The storms tearing across the eastern seaboard had already stranded Sterbinksy in Atlanta, eventually leaving Young without him for his Monday practice round at Royal Birkdale Golf Club. As fate would have it, this writer was on the same maligned flight path, bringing Sterbinsky and I together in the queue of the airline help desk late into the evening.

Sterbinsky’s attention, though, wasn’t on getting himself to England.

It was Young’s putter. The same Scotty Cameron Phantom that he used for his first and only three TOUR wins.

Somewhere in the same subterranean labyrinth as my suitcase sat Young’s putter, the club that, if it arrived in time, would soon help produce one of the finest rounds of The Open this year. My luggage finally turned up on Thursday. Sterbinsky and Young’s putter made it by Tuesday. Just in time.

Seven days later, Young would stand on Royal Birkdale’s practice range after posting a scintillating 6-under 64 to take the clubhouse lead in The Open and wait.

Wait for Sam Burns. Wait for Tommy Fleetwood. Wait for Bryson DeChambeau, Si Woo Kim, Scottie Scheffler and the rest of a leaderboard that seemed intent on unraveling across Birkdale’s brute of a back nine.

For a few hours, it looked as though the week that began on the wrong foot might end with Cameron Young lifting the claret jug. Instead, it ended one shot short.

Starting Sunday seven strokes behind Burns and tied for 20th, Young authored the kind of round that belongs in The Open folklore. By the time most contenders were pulling up to the art-deco clubhouse, Young had birdied three of his first four holes and was working on another at the fifth. He would total seven on the day before a lone bogey on the last brought him back to single digits under par.

Young’s efforts were spurred on by a healthy dusting of anger heading into Sunday.

“I wasn’t pleased,” Young said regarding his third-round 73 that left him seven shots out of the lead. “Not really at my golf. … I hit 15 greens and made one birdie and made four bogeys. So just a day where everything was 28 feet and I missed them all.”

Saturday’s round felt, in his mind, more unjust than poor. The golf had been there, but the score had not. Most players carry frustration into the following round like excess baggage, but Young unpacked it before he reached the first tee.

“To come out, I feel like I was really clear-minded all day. I had a really clear intention what I was going to do. I just executed that really, really well, and it happened to add up to 64. It could have been 68; it could have been 60.”

Young’s lone blemish came at the 72nd hole after his drive found one of the many fairway bunkers at Birkdale. His attempt to escape and still reach the green was thin and battered against the tall face of the sand trap, caroming some 30 yards further right. His approach from there would find sand again, and after nearly holing his second bunker shot of the hole, he tapped in for bogey. It’s a finish that felt cruel after four hours of exquisite golf.

Even then, there was little second-guessing.

“Driver is aggressive there,” Young said of his decision on the 18th. “But the only option to take out all the bunkers is to leave yourself like 265 in, which didn’t feel that smart to me either. I just figured go ahead and try to hit a good one.

“I felt like I had a chance to get the second one on the green.”

After signing his card Sunday, Young and Sterbinsky wandered toward the practice range, believing, understandably, that their work was finished. Birkdale had other ideas. Of the 27 players who teed off after Young, only four managed to break par.

“It was pretty nerve-racking,” Sterbinsky told PGATOUR.com. “Not really knowing what was gonna happen… the place is so hard. There’s so much going on that anything could happen. We just tried to keep our emotions out of it until we realized we might need to start warming up for a playoff.”

How were Young’s nerves?

Sterbinsky smiled.

“Good,” he said. “He’s a killer.”

The playoff never materialized. When Ryan Fox's birdie dropped at the last, the roar caromed from the 18th amphitheater. Young and Sterbinsky didn’t need to look at the small monitor they had nearby; they knew.

Heads down, they gathered the remaining range balls, packed their bags and headed home. There was something fitting about the quiet efficiency of it all.

Earlier in the afternoon, Young had been asked how he planned to spend the wait.

“I’ll probably start packing up my locker either way just for efficiency’s sake.”

This is, after all, a man who skipped the Genesis Scottish Open because he’d rather spend another week with his family. A man who anecdotally doesn’t care much for television, doesn’t spend much time on his phone and shrugs when asked about his favorite baseball team despite wearing an MLB patch as a sponsor. Ask him what matters most, and the answer isn’t another trophy. It’s being a good father to his three children, with a fourth on the way.

Asked if he was excited to return to St. Andrews next year, where another near miss awaits in memory, Young barely entertained the premise.

“Honestly, I haven’t thought that far ahead,” he said. “I’m lucky if I know where I’m going next week. I know tomorrow I’m going home one way or another, so I’m excited about that.”

This top major finish will go right next to the others. That solo-second at St. Andrews in 2022. Third at the PGA Championship that same year. Fourth at last year’s U.S. Open. Top 10s at Augusta in 2023, 2024 and again earlier this year.

Now another runner-up finish, this one after threatening to erase a seven-shot deficit that immediately recalled Justin Thomas’ comeback victory at the 2022 PGA Championship. He already owns THE PLAYERS Championship, still the only the fifth major in name, and two other TOUR victories. The old narrative that he was the best player in golf without a win on TOUR. Now, he’s clearly the best player in golf without a major.

The fascinating part is that Young himself rarely seems interested in narrating this chase. He is one of the more enigmatic personalities among the game’s elite, offering little beyond concise answers unless the moment truly moves him. After winning at TPC Sawgrass, he admitted something that explained almost everything.

“I think I’m just generally pretty hard on myself,” Young said in March. “I think a lot of people that are good at what they do expect a lot out of themselves. While it might not be the best thing for performing at your highest level, those expectations are also something that drive you to be good.”

He will have to wait a little longer for that elusive major championship. Judging by Sunday at Royal Birkdale, it may not have to wait much longer.