Cam Young’s frustrating wait for a first PGA Tour victory ended in dominating fashion at the Wyndham Championship and now a yearlong goal—possibly—is within reach.
Young, who had an agonizing seven runner-up finishes, including at the 2022 British Open behind Cam Smith, made it clear over the weekend that the Ryder Cup was a huge goal for him this year.
Two years ago, Young was ninth in the final points standings and was bypassed as the Americans got whipped in Italy. Now, with the makeup of the entire U.S. team far from certain, Young has at least put himself in the picture, even if he is unable to climb high in points to earn one of the six automatic spots.
“Set out the year to give our captain no choice, and I don’t know if I’m in a position to do that or not, but it would take some really good golf between now and then,” Young said. “But if I’m in the question, that’s been a big goal of mine and I’d love to put myself there anyway.”
U.S. captain Keegan Bradley, who missed the cut at the Wyndham and is also in the running for one of the spots, does not have any easy decisions looming with just this week’s FedEx St Jude Championship and next week’s BMW Championship to decide the six automatic qualifiers. He will make his six at-large picks following the Tour Championship on Aug. 27.
Part of that is due to a few of what would be considered his locks to have had tough years. Collin Morikawa is eighth in points and Patrick Cantlay is 14th. The belief here is both will be on the team, but there’s plenty of uncertainty.
Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, J.J. Spaun, Russell Henley, Bryson DeChambeau and Harris English are currently in the first six spots. Justin Thomas is seventh but you’d have to consider him a lock.
The good news for Bradley is he knows Scheffler has a good partner in Henley, who won the Arnold Palmer Invitational and performed well with the world’s No. 1 player last year at the Presidents Cup. DeChambeau and English have also had solid years.
But Schauffele has not and Spaun is severely untested in this environment, which would seem to make leaning toward veterans Morikawa and Cantlay more imperative, despite their own struggles.
After that, who do you take among Maverick McNealy, Brian Harman, Bradley, Andrew Novak, Sam Burns, Daniel Berger, Chris Gotterup and Young, who is now 15th in the standings?
If you take the current top six plus Thomas, Morikawa and Cantlay, that leaves just three spots. Bradley won the Travelers Championship in June and has been trending among the top American players all year. Is he a lock at this point?
With him, that would leave just two spots. Gotterup has been on a nice roll of late, winning the Scottish Open—and playing with Rory McIlroy in the final round—then finishing third at the Open and 10th at the 3M Championship. If recent form matters—and the Ryder Cup is still six weeks away—then you have to look at him, too.
Harman, Burns and Berger have experience but is Bethpage a fit for them?
It would seem to be for Young, who cited that among the reasons for being so keen on making the team.
“I think that that location is, first of all, one of my favorite golf courses in the world,” said Young, who is from the area. “I have a lot of good memories there playing the New York State Open and I’m sure a New York crowd would be I at least hope on my side to some extent.
“So yeah, that’s been a goal this whole year. I’m trying to just look at that to just take all the small stuff that happens day to day as it comes with—in the back of my mind trying to picture myself on that team. Obviously I’d love to make it. It hurt pretty bad to miss it a couple years ago. I was ninth on the points list and didn’t get picked, so I was a bit frustrated with that.”
One aspect that will work in Young’s favor is his vast improvement in putting. He was 145th in strokes-gained putting last year but is now 10th and had an impressive week on the greens at the Wyndham.
There are three more weeks for those who don’t make the team on points to make their case, with no decisions seemingly easy at this point.
Rory, the FedEx playoffs and his schedule
Rory McIlroy is not in Memphis this week, which strikes some as an abomination but really should not have been a surprise. McIlroy more than hinted at this possibility at times and the fact that he’s easily locked up a spot in the Tour Championship and has reaped untold riches already this season makes the decision, frankly, quite understandable and defensible.
McIlroy, 36, who won the Masters to complete the career Grand Slam earlier this year, finished second to Scottie Scheffler in the regular season—meaning he secured a $10 million bonus via the FedEx and Comcast Business bonus plans—and is comfortably headed to the the BMW Championship next week as well as the Tour Championship in two weeks.
In fact, McIlroy could skip them both if he chose, as the Ryder Cup will count for his 15th event and take care of his Tour minimums.
This situation has raised some concern that players could skip playoff events in the future and that McIlroy—as a lifetime member of the PGA Tour because he has the required 20 wins (29 total)—could elect to play less, especially since he has moved to London and could very well play more DP World Tour events.
First, McIlroy is quite likely an outlier here, in the most unique of situations. There is criticism often today for players not competing more globally, and yet McIlroy is doing exactly that. He is scheduled to play another six times on the DP World Tour in Ireland, England, India, the United Arab Emirates (twice) and Australia. Oh, and the Ryder Cup.
As he said last year, he needed to find a way to cut back. And after playing the FedEx St. Jude and finishing 68th (out of 70) last year, dropping just one spot in the standings, he saw this as one opportunity.
He’s also unlike most players. If McIlroy were 50th in points, he’d be playing. Most who qualify for the playoffs are not assured of being there, and they certainly are not guaranteed of making it to the next two tournaments. Most players do not want to skip $20 million no-cut tournaments, not to mention the $23 million in bonus money at stake (new this year) following the BMW Championship.
This new format for the Tour Championship—the starting strokes are gone—in favor of a stand-alone tournament with $10 million to the winner could quite possibly be tweaked again in time for next year. A run of players skipping playoff events seems highly unlikely.
Back in the first year of the FedEx Cup playoffs in 2007, there was a stir when Tiger Woods elected to skip the first of what was then a four-tournament playoff series. He had won five times during the regular season, including the PGA Tour Championship and had runner-up finishes at the Masters and U.S. Open. Woods tied for second the next week, then won the last two playoff events, including the Tour Championship. Nobody was too bothered.
As for McIlroy’s ability to play fewer than the mandated 15-tournament minimum because he is now a lifetime member, that is also not a concern if he plans to continue playing the DP World Tour.
McIlroy is subject to the “home tour” rule which allows him unlimited starts in Europe and the Middle East without the need for a release from the PGA Tour—as long as he plays the minimum 15. That is unlikely to be a problem going forward, either, as the four majors, the Scottish Open and the Players all count and he can even add tournaments in the fall if he were to come up short.
A LIV Golf purse increase
As if the players competing in the LIV Golf League don’t already play for enough money, there is set to be a $5 million per-event increase in 2026. According to Sports Business Journal, the money will be earmarked for the team portion of the competition, with the total weekly outlay climbing to $30 million.
That means the individual portion will remain $20 million—$4 million to the winner—but the teams will play for $10 million per week, with some portion of that spread throughout the entire league.
For the first four seasons, only the top three teams from each tournament are paid from the $5 million purse, with $3 million going to the winner, $1.5 million to second and $500,000 to third.
There is also a big payout at the season-ending team championship, with $50 million in prize money, $14 million going to the winning team (with a portion earmarked for each player) down to $600,000 for last place.
The problem with the current system is that many of the teams—aside from the team championship—never finish in the money. And the business model of the league is predicated on the teams forging their own financial path, with salaries paid to players, expenses taken care of for the various personnel, including caddies.
Although the teams are also expected to sell sponsorships, it is possible that there is a revenue shortfall among some of them. LIV Golf has not confirmed the new purse plan.
But Cam Smith, the 2022 Open champion who is the captain of the all-Aussie Rippers team, said last week during a conference call to promote the season-ending team championship in Michigan, that the players are aware of a potential change.
“I think there was a little bit of a talk to increase the team payout per week,” Smith said. “Kind of makes a little bit of sense, I guess, business-wise for the teams. We have different managers. We’ve all got probably between five to 10 staff at the moment on most of the teams. As you can imagine, it’s probably not cheap to get everyone around and all the rest of it. So I think that was the goal.
“I’m not sure if it’s approved yet or not. I really don’t know. But I think it would be a good thing for the teams business-wise going forward.”
With 13 tournaments prior to the team event, that would be an extra $65 million outlay for LIV Golf.
LIV Golf has its 12th event of the season this week in Chicago, followed by next week’s season-ending individual tournament in Indianapolis followed by the Team Championship a week later in Michigan.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Cameron Young, Finally a Winner, Adds Another Twist to the U.S. Ryder Cup Discussion.