{"id":45178,"date":"2026-08-01T13:28:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T13:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/45178\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T13:28:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T13:28:25","slug":"cameron-young-seizes-share-of-lead-after-shooting-61-at-rocket-classic-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/45178\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameron Young seizes share of lead after shooting 61 at Rocket Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jul 31, 2026, 07:16 PM ET<\/p>\n<p>DETROIT &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/cameron-young-players-championship-masters-783aa822af5857a86500a4c40bd5d111\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cameron Young<\/a> birdied seven of his first eight holes in the second round of the Rocket Classic and thought he had a shot at the lowest score in PGA Tour history.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was thinking 55,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Young cooled off with two birdies on his back nine in a bogey-free round, closing with a Detroit Golf Club-record tying 61 to reach 10 under for the tournament to tie <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/scottish-open-mcilroy-cantlay-european-tour-scheffler-fa2cf70fce0b75a311442d62e4417388\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Patrick Cantlay<\/a> (66) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/4358083\/patrick-fishburn\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Patrick Fishburn<\/a> (66) atop the leaderboard Friday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You hate to call it a disappointing 61,&#8221; he said, lamenting missing many birdie opportunities that preventing him from breaking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/story\/_\/id\/17238752\/players-react-jim-furyk-posting-first-round-58-pga-tour-history\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jim Furyk&#8217;s record 58<\/a> that has stood for a decade.<\/p>\n<p>Young, the No. 3 player in the world with three wins this season, shot a 59 in 2024 at the Travelers Championship and had a chance to join Furyk with multiple sub-60 rounds on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It felt like I had a 10-footer for birdie on pretty much every hole,&#8221; Young said.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of players took advantage of one of the easiest courses on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n<p><a data-player-guid=\"516e4c95-b159-3fdb-b37c-d26e27c1b0c9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/10548\/matt-wallace\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matt Wallace<\/a> (64) and <a data-player-guid=\"330cbcb2-636c-8729-3c1f-829c82011df9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/3702\/rickie-fowler\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rickie Fowler<\/a> (68) were two shots back.<\/p>\n<p>Fowler surged into the lead &#8211; briefly &#8211; at 11 under before falling back to the pack. He three-putted from 24 feet to bogey No. 11 and went from thigh-high fescue to a greenside bunker at No. 13, leading to his second of three bogeys on the back nine.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Nice to finish with birdie on 18,&#8221; said Fowler, whose sixth and last win was the 2023 Rocket Classic. &#8220;A lot of good stuff today and nice to be in a good spot for the weekend.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>First-round leader <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/rocket-classic-leaderboard-dd18c95b0e8fa8873528b37e1a5c3854\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Peter Malnati<\/a>, who followed up his 61 on Thursday with a 71, was another stroke back in a large group that included Xander Schauffele (66).<\/p>\n<p>Hideki Matsuyama (68) extended the PGA Tour&#8217;s longest active cuts streak to 30 by getting to 5 under with a slew of players, including Tony Finau (67), who is hoping to improve his positioning to be among the top 70 players in the FedEx Cup standings after next week&#8217;s Wyndham Championship.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I check it pretty much every tournament just kind of see where I&#8217;m at, even on off weeks,&#8221; said Finau, the 2022 Rocket Classic champion, who entered the tournament No. 87 in the standings.<\/p>\n<p>Matt Kuchar was another stroke back, getting a boost from his seventh career ace with a 9-iron on the 156-yard, par-3 5th hole. Kuchar invited a kid to join him inside the ropes to retrieve the ball, which he signed with a black marker.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I saw a little boy that was kind of the right age where you know they&#8217;re so excited to be out here, just very impressionable,&#8221; Kuchar said. &#8220;One of those things where it&#8217;s easy to make their day. I think anytime you get to make a kid&#8217;s day, it makes your day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Rocket Classic, which is in its eighth and final year, drew a stronger than usual field and some notable names missed the cut at 3 under.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Open champion <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/wyndham-clark-us-open-shinnecock-hills-gallery-7842dc5c46b87a6abad42c4744fbfca1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wyndham Clark<\/a> (74) was 5 over. <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/chris-gotterup-jersey-oklahoma-pga-tour-95435993552537c733e2bc5f2070f61e\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chris Gotterup<\/a>, a three-time winner this year and ranked No. 7 in the world, was 1 over to end his streak of making the cut in 14 straight starts. <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/arnold-palmer-invitational-bay-hill-berger-bhatia-f52e1367499bffc2ebd5fa472675e1e1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Akshay Bhatia<\/a> (71) &#8211; No. 12 in FedEx Cup standings &#8211; also dropped out at 1 under.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jul 31, 2026, 07:16 PM ET DETROIT &#8212; Cameron Young birdied seven of his first eight holes in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[685],"class_list":["post-45178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cameron-young","tag-cameron-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}