FOR YEARS ON TOUR, CAMERON YOUNG WAS GOLF’S MOST INTRIGUING QUIET MAN, A LOW-KEY, HIGH-POWERED TALENT WITH EVERYTHING BUT A WIN. THEN, AT LAST, CAME THE TROPHIES, THE RYDER CUP TEAM ROOM, A ROCKET UP THE RANKINGS AND HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE AMONG THE BEST IN THE GAME.
TRUE TO FORM, Cameron Young arrives early and well prepared.
Our production crew is finishing its setup behind the clubhouse at Dutchman’s Pipe, a well-to-do West Palm Beach golf club just a few miles south of Young’s home, when the cover star himself—on this day in late May, the third-ranked golfer in the world—pulls up in a golf cart and offers a wave to our photographer. He looks more casual than we’re accustomed to seeing him, wearing an unbuttoned white polo untucked over gray shorts. Several hangers swing from the back of his cart.
“I brought options,” he says sheepishly, gesturing to a handful of logoed golf shirts and checked button-downs. He hops from the cart and shakes hands with each member of the GOLF team. For the next couple hours, he’s engaged and engaging—direct and forthright through a photo shoot, a sit-down chat and a one-sided battle with a bucket of balls.
That Young is here at all is an encouraging sign for those of us intrigued by his game and what makes him tick. His first several years on Tour were marked by a Teddy Roosevelt-like approach to the media and his on-course performance, speaking softly and carrying a big stick while leaving us to guess the rest. We got to know him, in part, from what we saw on TV—the beard, the game-time scowl, the prodigious power, the trademark pause at the top of his backswing—but not much else. Young seemed, from the outside, a reluctant star, notably declining to create even an Instagram account—almost unheard of in this multi-platform, brand-building era.