{"id":53132,"date":"2026-08-20T01:27:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T01:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/53132\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T01:27:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T01:27:26","slug":"cameron-young-shares-2nd-round-lead-at-rocket-classic-with-a-61-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/53132\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameron Young shares 2nd-round lead at Rocket Classic with a 61"},"content":{"rendered":"

DETROIT (AP) \u2014 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<\/a> history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking 55,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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 Patrick Cantlay<\/a> (66) and Patrick Fishburn (66) atop the leaderboard Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou hate to call it a disappointing 61,\u201d he said, lamenting missing many birdie opportunities that preventing him from breaking Jim Furyk\u2019s record 58<\/a> that has stood for a decade.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cIt felt like I had a 10-footer for birdie on pretty much every hole,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n

A lot of players took advantage of one of the easiest courses on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

Matt Wallace (64) and Rickie Fowler (68) were two shots back.<\/p>\n

Fowler surged into the lead \u2014 briefly \u2014 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

\u201cNice to finish with birdie on 18,\u201d said Fowler, whose sixth and last win was the 2023 Rocket Classic<\/a>. \u201cA lot of good stuff today and nice to be in a good spot for the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

First-round leader 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

Hideki Matsuyama (68) extended the PGA Tour\u2019s 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\u2019s Wyndham Championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI check it pretty much every tournament just kind of see where I\u2019m at, even on off weeks,\u201d said Finau, the 2022 Rocket Classic<\/a> champion, who entered the tournament No. 87 in the standings. <\/p>\n

Matt Kuchar was another stroke back, getting a boost from his seventh career ace<\/a> 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

\u201cI saw a little boy that was kind of the right age where you know they\u2019re so excited to be out here, just very impressionable,\u201d Kuchar said. \u201cOne of those things where it\u2019s easy to make their day. I think anytime you get to make a kid\u2019s day, it makes your day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rocket Classic, which is in its eighth and final year<\/a>, drew a stronger than usual field and some notable names missed the cut at 3 under.<\/p>\n

U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark<\/a> (74) was 5 over. 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. Akshay Bhatia<\/a> (71) \u2014 No. 12 in FedEx Cup standings \u2014 also dropped out at 1 under.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT (AP) \u2014 Cameron Young birdied seven of his first eight holes in the second round of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1751,685,1479,1453,4511,321,1558,294,44,1511,1326,3891,1954,7896,117,2354,913,2424,2016,1747,17541,17531,1513,56,2201,424,1401],"class_list":["post-53132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cameron-young","tag-akshay-bhatia","tag-cameron-young","tag-chris-gotterup","tag-connecticut","tag-ct-state-wire","tag-detroit","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-golf","tag-hideki-matsuyama","tag-jim-furyk","tag-matt-kuchar","tag-matt-wallace","tag-mi-state-wire","tag-michigan","tag-nc-state-wire","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-north-carolina","tag-patrick-cantlay","tag-patrick-fishburn","tag-peter-malnati","tag-rickie-fowler","tag-sports","tag-tony-finau","tag-wyndham-clark","tag-xander-schauffele"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53132","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=53132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}