Rain can’t slow Young’s march to Cadillac Championship
A rain delay pushed Sunday’s start back at Trump National Doral, but once the final round got moving, Cameron Young never let the Cadillac Championship turn into the scramble many expected.
Young arrived at the Blue Monster with a six-shot lead, kept the field at arm’s length through the front nine, then effectively ended the tournament with birdies on holes 15 and 16. By the time he tapped in on 18, the only thing left to determine was the final winning margin.
Young finished at 19-under-par to win by six shots over world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. Ben Griffin finished alone in third at 12-under, while Adam Scott, Si Woo Kim and Sepp Straka tied for fourth at 11-under. The win earned Young $3.6 million from the $20 million purse. Scheffler took home $2.18 million, while Griffin earned $1.38 million.
“Winning is really hard,” Young said. “At no point did it feel easy, like the tournament was over… It was really just a matter of keeping my head down and trying to play good golf all the way through to the finish.”
That approach showed from the start.
Young played his front nine in 3-under 33 with birdies on holes 3, 5 and 8, stretching his overnight cushion instead of protecting it. He gave one shot back with a bogey on 11, but never looked rattled. The decisive answer came on the back nine, where he birdied 15 and 16 to push the tournament fully out of reach.
It was the kind of round Young said he had to earn shot by shot, especially after the reminders he had received earlier in the week about how quickly things can flip at Doral.
“The leads can go away really quick around here,” Young said. “There’s no reason to be protecting anything.”
That line ended up defining his Sunday as much as any number on the card. Young did not play like someone trying to coast home with a lead. He played like someone still trying to stretch the tournament as far as he could.
The result was his third PGA Tour title and second of the season, another sign that the player who spent years piling up close calls has moved into a different phase of his career.
“Once you’ve done it once, I think it is easier to do it again,” Young said. “I think I’m slightly better just everywhere than I was a year ago. … It’s just very, very small progress, and it’s showing up in the results.”
The Blue Monster fit him all week.
Young repeatedly spoke about preferring demanding setups, and Doral gave him exactly that kind of test. Even with Sunday’s softer conditions after the weather delay, the course still asked for disciplined driving, precise iron play and enough nerve on the greens to keep momentum alive.
“It’s just undeniably a big, difficult championship golf course,” Young said. “For me personally I prefer a difficult golf course to an easier one.”
Griffin, who made the steadiest Sunday push among the chasers before a bogey at 18, said the rain made the course more attackable in spots, particularly with short irons.
“The conditions were softer with the rain,” Griffin said. “I knew because of that we were going to be able to attack a few more pins.”
Even so, he made clear there was only so much anyone behind Young could realistically do.
“You can’t really have a mind-set of let’s make nine birdies on a course like Doral,” Griffin said. “You’ve got to be so patient.”
Griffin also had a simple explanation for why Young fit so well at Doral.
“I’ve known Cam for a really long time,” Griffin said. “I always knew he had this golf in him… Man he crushes the ball. On a course like this where distance is a premium, it makes sense that he could run away with something with a week like this.”
Scheffler, who played alongside Young for three of the four rounds, never fully recovered from a frustrating front nine. After birdieing the first hole, he bogeyed 7, 8 and 9, a stretch that stalled any realistic chance of making Young uncomfortable. He did respond with birdies on 10, 15, 16 and 17, but by then Young had widened the gap again.
“I felt like I couldn’t really get anything going,” Scheffler said. “Just didn’t really get enough momentum going.”
He was also blunt about what separated Young from everyone else.
“On the greens he was unbelievable this week,” Scheffler said. “When you’re hitting really good shots and holing a lot of putts that’s a recipe to run away with a golf tournament.”
Scott, a former Doral winner, produced the round of the day among the early finishers, firing an 8-under 64 to climb into a tie for fourth after opening the week with a 5-over 77. He said 14-under over his final 36 holes was “good playing around here, for sure,” another reminder that even the players chasing from behind Young viewed low scoring at Doral as a serious achievement.
Young’s week also unfolded against an unusual backdrop. President Donald Trump attended Sunday’s final round, creating a security-heavy atmosphere that Young said altered the rhythm of the day before he even got to the first tee. Still, once the round started, he said the focus narrowed quickly back to just golf.
When the final putt fell, the moment carried something more personal, too.
Young said he was especially happy to see his family at the finish after his wife made the trip down later in the day with their children.
The celebration itself, however, will not last long.
When asked what he planned to do to celebrate the victory and whether he had a trophy case at home, Young smirked and stayed about as composed as he had from his first tee shot at Doral.
“I don’t have one,” he said. “Not a whole lot of celebrating. … This is a big win for me and a great achievement, but realistically tomorrow is back to work, and that’s just kind of how it goes. It’s non-stop.”
