{"id":57163,"date":"2026-08-27T17:26:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T17:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/57163\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T17:26:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T17:26:32","slug":"cameron-young-just-won-the-players-a-simple-mental-shift-helped-make-it-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/57163\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameron Young just won The Players. A simple mental shift helped make it happen"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is part of Peak, The Athletic\u2019s desk covering the mental side of sports. Sign up for Peak\u2019s newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Cameron Young prepared for The Players Championship, a fleeting thought crossed his mind:<\/p>\n

What if I win this week?<\/p>\n

But just as quickly, he dismissed it, recalling a realization he had come to not long before:<\/p>\n

If I\u2019m focused on that, it\u2019s probably not going to happen.<\/p>\n

For Young \u2014 long known for a string of runner-up finishes on the PGA Tour \u2014 it was the product of more than a year\u2019s worth of deliberate mental work with a sports psychologist, Dr. Bhrett McCabe.<\/p>\n

Young won The Players Championship over the weekend and moved up to No. 4 in the world rankings. He said during big tournaments in the past, he often had negative thoughts, focusing too much on results; he used to worry before tournaments that he \u201creally needed to finish in the top five.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s worked hard to change that. And that change in mindset, ironically, has produced the very outcomes he used to chase.<\/p>\n

Early in his career, he consistently found himself near the top of PGA Tour leaderboards without ever breaking through for a win. The issue wasn\u2019t talent. It was where his mind drifted when things didn\u2019t go according to plan.<\/p>\n

To illustrate the change, he gave a hypothetical example of his ball bouncing to the left and into a bunker as opposed to bouncing right onto the green.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, I would have said something negative about myself just because my ball ended up in the bunker,\u201d Young said. \u201cNow it\u2019s more like, \u2018I executed my process well there \u2014 now I just have to go hit a bunker shot,’\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Much of that negativity was subconscious. But he\u2019s worked to develop an awareness that allows him to recognize negative thoughts in real time and, crucially, revise them to focus on small, tangible steps, rather than results.<\/p>\n

A sports psychologist’s habit that can help everything else fall into place<\/p>\n

Elise Devlin<\/p>\n

The difference became noticeable to him at last year\u2019s PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club, a course he finds difficult. To make matters more complicated, he entered the week in bad shape.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was deathly ill trying to play a major championship,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it was just one of those things where I was looking up at the leaderboard, and I was in 30th or something, and it just seemed so impossible to move up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Physically depleted and making what he called \u201cdumb mistakes,\u201d he found himself at a familiar breaking point. But this time, something shifted.<\/p>\n

You still have to hit every shot.<\/p>\n

The simple phrases McCabe had drilled into him surfaced at the right moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike, I have to hit all the shots here whether I feel good or not,\u201d he said to himself. \u201cI might as well take a swing \u2014 I\u2019ve got nothing to protect. I haven\u2019t even hit it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Essentially, he shouldn\u2019t let the score, or his mood, influence making a good swing on each shot. Each shot is its own opportunity.<\/p>\n

He encountered a similar mental test at the Ryder Cup, where, despite the U.S. team\u2019s loss, he performed well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was real proof to me that this works,\u201d Young said. \u201cThat we\u2019re doing the right things to get the results we want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just two weeks ago at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Florida, a few strokes behind the lead, Young opened a text from McCabe.<\/p>\n

It read: \u201cToday, just run your own race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young understood. Whether someone else got out to a fast lead or Young struggled early on, he needed to just focus on each shot and see what happened.<\/p>\n

By the time he arrived at The Players Championship, his guiding phrase had become simple: Be where my feet are.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime one of those unprompted thoughts creeps in,\u201d he said, \u201cI remind myself, \u2018That thought is about three holes ago. That\u2019s not where I am. I\u2019m walking down the 10th, not standing on the seventh green.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The work is ongoing. Winning the Players was a great result, but it raised the question of how to process that big of an achievement without becoming overly results-focused.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday morning, Young spoke with McCabe, who offered a simple framework: \u201cLet yourself think until Wednesday night. Then we go to work on Thursday.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea isn\u2019t to suppress ambition or emotion. Young allows space for both \u2014 dreams, expectations, even anger after a bad performance. But each has its limits.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, every path must lead back to the same place: the process. The small, controllable steps along the way. Never the results.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still in the discovery phase,\u201d he said. \u201cThe next step is figuring out just how good I can get at this \u2014 how much of a weapon my mind can become.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of Peak, The Athletic\u2019s desk covering the mental side of sports. Sign up for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[685,44,11504,2960],"class_list":["post-57163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cameron-young","tag-cameron-young","tag-golf","tag-olympics","tag-peak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57163","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=57163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}