AUGUSTA, Ga. — Playing in his first Masters Tournament last year, Cam Young was afraid to hit his first tee shot and unsure how anyone made a birdie at Augusta National Golf Club.
On Thursday, he proved what he’s learned in the last year, felt comfortable on the course and returned to a familiar place – the leaderboard in a major championship.
Young birdied the first three holes in a 5-under 67, continuing his torrid trend in golf’s most important tournaments. He finished one shot out of a playoff in The Open Championship and PGA Championship last year.
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His opening birdie Thursday was a slippery 11-foot putt that broke 2 ½ feet right-to-left.
“Honestly, I told (caddie Paul Tesori), after the putt went in on 1, I was literally trying to make par,” Young said. “I knew that from 15 feet, if I tried to make par, I could make par, which was going to be a perfectly good start for me. So that was really the goal, and it happened to go in, which was awesome.”
It was the kind of putt golfers face throughout a round at Augusta National. One that looks benign from afar but can easily slide three or four feet past the cup.
“That was a really fun start to the day. I think out here that’s kind of the way you have to approach it in a lot of places,” Young said. “So any time one of those goes in, it’s a bonus for sure.”
Birdies on 2 and 3 followed and Young fired a 33 on the second nine. He hit a 165-yard approach shot to 3 feet on 10, rolled in a downhill 19-footer on 13, two-putted from 33 feet on 15 and stuck his approach to 4 feet on 16.
It added up to a 10-shot improvement over his opening round a year ago, when he missed the cut by five.
Young, the 2021-22 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, missed just two fairways and hit 14 of 18 greens in regulation. He routinely outdrove playing partner Jon Rahm, a co-leader, and gave himself makeable birdie putts throughout the round.
It was a continuation from two weeks ago, when Young finished runner-up to Sam Burns in the WGC-Match Play. He feels better about his driver now than he did then and was careful not to overexert himself in practice this week, after falling into that common trap for Masters rookies a year ago.
He arrived Monday afternoon and played 27 practice holes spread out over the last three days.
“I kind of did my work at home and came here really just to hit some putts and chip around the greens a little bit and get…
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