YOUNG WENT FOR IT

Hats off to Cameron Young……10-under on the eighteenth hole in The Open at Royal Birkdale his drive in a fairway bunker he made the decision to go for the green.

A six iron catches the wall of the bunker and ricochets right into the rough. His third shot finds a greenside bunker and a fantastic up and down for bogey to walk off at 9-under and eventually one shy of Ryan Fox.

“Yeah, it’s just one of those like — one of the times you just wonder what you’ve just done a little bit.

But I was trying to hit it on the green, to be honest. I felt like I could. I really felt like 10 had a good chance to win the golf tournament. It was just trying to win the golf tournament.

I couldn’t lay it up anywhere great. It would have been tough for me to like guarantee getting over the lip and guarantee covering that cross-bunker and stay short of the other one. I would have had to dump it out in front of me really to be sure of it. It just felt worth the risk.”

Camerons trouble started with his drive, which while good was caught by the wind……..“Yeah. It was a really hard tee shot. Driver is aggressive there, 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.

Off the face, I really thought I did. I hit a nice shot. It’s just windy. When it gets going that way, the wind carries it, and it’s always going to kick right.

Unfortunately, I missed the fairway, then I was trying — I felt like I had a chance to get the second one on the green. I kind of had a wide open 6-iron. It was only 160-something yards to the front. So I felt like there was an off chance I could get something on the front edge.

I wasn’t trying to miss it thin, but did. I was very grateful it got out of the bunker. Then hit a decent third shot but not my best. Then the bunker shot really had a chance. At that point, bogeys become a good score at that point, unfortunately, and proud of the putt I hit.”

While this one is sure to hurt, it can only be a matter of time before Cameron claims a major.

Photo: G. Ruddy.