Cameron Young is unflappable. It’s why he’s tied for the Masters lead

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Why would a man who’s normally managing car seat triage, playing zone defense with three young kids, feel overwhelmed by a bad shot into the water? Why would a guy well-versed in the witching hours of dinner, bath and bedtime feel his heart rate rise standing over the water on Augusta National’s 15th hole with so much at stake?

Cameron Young is a dad. Like, really a dad. He’s 28 years-old with three kids under 5. He exhibits a stolid face under a polished yet matured beard that chooses not to emote. He’s somebody players ask for advice on their first kid, and their second, and definitely their third. Minutes after he won The Players Championship last month, he still said he was thinking about packing the family in the car and driving the four hours back to Jupiter, Florida. The dad energy radiated – let’s make good time.

And Sunday morning, after loading the kids into the car, unloading them at Sunday mass, loading them up again, and then a final unload back at the rental house, he’ll head back to Augusta National to play 18 holes with a chance to win the Masters.

Perhaps it is in fact the unflappable, stock-soaring Young that is actually best equipped for this moment – his first major championship, or Rory McIlroy’s title defense.

You all wanted to see Rory vs. Patrick Reed, two career-long enemies serving each other Christmas Eve subpoenas and trading constant verbal jabs. Or maybe you wanted Rory vs. Scottie, the world 1-and-2 going at it for supremacy. Before the week, you clamored for a Rory vs. Bryson III.

But Rory vs. Cam is what you get, and it might just be what you need.

For the ball knowers, sure, Young is a known commodity. They were not surprised in the least he shot a 65 on Saturday, tied for the lowest round of the day and vaulting him up the leaderboard. He is the broad-shouldered bomber who nearly won the PGA Championship and Open Championship at 25, the ball-striking superpower who had three major top-10s before he turned 26. He was, like so many before him, the Next Big Thing. But, like many of those others, he didn’t quite happen. At least not right away. He didn’t make the 2023 Ryder Cup team. He didn’t win a tournament until August 2025. He toed that tricky line between disappointing and underwhelming.

So the fans around the 17th green will be forgiven for not quite processing what happened around them, especially as quickly as it did. Those grandstands were perhaps one-tenth full as Young walked up the fairway. The claps were tame. The discussions were mild. It appeared none of them understood that it was this guy, Young, leading the 2026 Masters as McIlroy dropped shots at Amen Corner. That it was Young who wasn’t just the story of the day but the story of the 2026 season.

Because ever-so-quickly, Cam has become the dude.

His win at the 2025 Wyndham Championship (the final event of the PGA Tour’s regular season) led to a spot on the Ryder Cup team. There, he didn’t so much as play well as he dominated, going 3-1 as the one true bright spot on a disastrous American week. Then, it was Young’s dramatic and just a little bit ruthless comeback win at last month’s Players Championship that turned him from a contender into a champion.

And maybe we should have paid more mind to the audacious thoughts Young unveiled after that win:

“My goal is to be prepared to be playing late on Sunday at Augusta.”

Whether or not Young wins Sunday, this is his proper audition to the sporting world. Golf knows him. But Masters audiences are a different stratosphere. This weekend, they met a golfer who somehow channels both unrelenting aggressiveness and comically boring stoicism. He hunts for pins and hits some of the more exciting shots in the game, and he’s also somebody who admits: “I’m never going to be real smiley, never going to be, you know, kind of outwardly super positive.”

Once you get it – that Young isn’t boring, he’s just internalized. That he isn’t wasted potential, he’s a slowly developing supernova finally skyrocketing to No. 3 in the world – you learn to see the entire picture.

When you saw him open the Masters with a front-nine 40 on Thursday, you could have thought this was the same old Cam. He thought, quite simply: “You’re going to make some bogeys at some point, and a lot of mine happened to come in those first seven holes.”

He’s 15-under in the 45 holes since.

When you saw him, one back of McIlroy on 15, hit a bad wedge shot that rolled down the front bank into the water, you could have thought he missed yet another major opportunity. He thought, Eh, I should just hit it better this time. He dropped in the same spot and stuck a shot to three feet for par. A hole later, a birdie on 16 to ultimately enter the final round tied with McIlroy.

So while some contenders might be tossing and turning Saturday night, thinking about the dreams that could be achieved tomorrow – or while McIlroy possibly dreads the disaster of handing away a six-shot 36-hole lead – Young is just going to hang out with the kids.

He talks often of his father, David, the former head pro at Sleepy Hollow, grinding for endless hours and missing so much time at home. Cam is thankful that, despite his crazy lifestyle, he’s only really working for a few hours a day and can bring the entire family on the road most weeks.

“I was with them this morning, and I will see them tonight,” he said. “It’s nice doing that.”

Young is going to live out a whole lot of stressful moments Sunday afternoon. It’s just not going to affect him all that much.