PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | It took longer than anyone expected for Cameron Young to win on tour and show his mettle in a Ryder Cup. But once that seal was broken starting last August in Greensboro in the shadow of his Wake Forest alma mater, Young has hit his stride.
Young’s biggest-moment countdown was as easy as T7 (Riviera) … T3 (Bay Hill) … 1 (TPC Sawgrass). Of course, nothing comes easily on a Sunday on the Stadium Course, where triumph and terror mingle so comfortably at every turn on the Pete Dye masterpiece that the Players Championship calls home. Just ask Ludvig Åberg, Michael Thorbjornsen, Matthew Fitzpatrick and about a dozen other players who flashed and fell from the leaderboard in the final round.
Young has had his own painful near misses on the biggest stages, coming one stroke shy at Southern Hills (2022 PGA Championship) and St. Andrews (2022 Open Championship). But he is as tough as they come, and he kept on knocking on doors after seven runner-ups. Now he’s knocking them down.
The Players always delivers more than its share of winners and losers:
BIRDIE: Cam Young. He’s now No. 4 in the world and no longer a quality sleeper pick in your Masters pool draft – or the rest of the majors this year for that matter. Those clutch shots he hit under intense pressure on 17 and 18 Sunday were major caliber.
BOGEY: Ludvig Åberg. It was going so well until it wasn’t. Anyone who witnessed Adam Scott’s breakout Players victory in 2004 might have been getting déjà vu vibes from the 26-year-old Swede. Young, handsome with a powerful swing smoother than peanut butter and a pace of play that’s glorious, Åberg seems destined to produce great things. Shocking water balls at 11 and 12 doused hopes that this would be the start. But it’s coming.
PAR: England. Now 0-for-205 starts in 52 years of the Players. Matthew Fitzpatrick could have used just one par all week on the 18th hole, where he went bogey-birdie-double bogey-bogey in losing by one shot. It was a painful finish to an otherwise excellent week, but leaves England still searching. Tommy Fleetwood (T8) and Justin Rose (T13) made noise as well but the song at Sawgrass remains the same and the golden golfer remains out of reach.
BIRDIE: PGA Tour University. Michael Thorbjornsen in 2024 immediately followed Åberg (2023) with direct access to the PGA Tour by topping the PGATU standings. The pair were a walking billboard for the system’s success in the final pairing on Sunday at Sawgrass, even if their finishing fortunes didn’t pan out.
BOGEY: Recent champs. World Nos. 1 and 2 Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy owned four of the last six Players trophies including the last three, but neither looked comfortable with their games at Sawgrass less than a month before they head to Augusta as presumptive Masters favorites. Both went to their respective 36th holes sitting directly on the cut line at 2-over par and made birdies. But T22 (Scheffler) and T46 (McIlroy) aren’t up to their standards.
BIRDIE: First-timers. With the reduced field size, there were only 15 first-time Players competitors in the field this year. Eight of them made the cut and a few produced highlights like Thorbjornsen bouncing back from an opening 74 to reach the final pairing, Sudarshan Yellamaraju’s impressive weekend 66-68 surge to T5 and William Mouw posting twice as many rounds in the 60s as Scheffler (1) and McIlroy (0) combined.
WD: Reunification. What was a stated priority a year ago by commissioner Jay Monahan is not even on the radar of new CEO Brian Rolapp, who dismissed LIV Golf as not part of his “brief to make the PGA Tour better.” And don’t hold your breath hoping LIV’s best stars get invited to the Players to make it more major. “That’s not sort of a priority I’ve put on my list,” Rolapp said.
BIRDIE: Xander Schauffele. Still trying to find the form he had in 2024, Schauffele put himself in contention despite long periods of struggle and a couple of shanks on the weekend. Golfers say it so often that the meaning gets lost, but the X-man “is close” to being all the way back after battling a rib injury last year.
BIRDIE: Brooks Koepka. Speaking of happy returns, the five-time major winner made his first Players appearance since leaving for LIV in 2022. He’s gradually getting his form back from an extended funk, and would have had a top-10 finish if he hadn’t double-bogeyed 18 on Sunday to end up T13 instead.
BOGEY: Tony Finau. For five years from 2018-23, Finau won five times and was consistently a world top-20 player reaching as high as No. 9. His relevance has slipped to mediocrity along with his world ranking outside the top 100. His old promise flashed brightly atop the leaderboard at 5-under through his first seven holes. He promptly bogeyed his next four and eventually finished T70 with closing rounds of 75-75-77.
PAR: Georgia Bulldogs. Considering how well, how often and how many former Georgia golfers play the Stadium Course, you’d think they’d have won one of these by now like Georgia Tech has (Matt Kuchar). But despite Sepp Straka (T8), Brian Harman (T11), Russell Henley (T13) and Keith Mitchell (T46) all flashing on the leaderboard for extended stretches last week, the Dawgs still only have three all-time runner-ups in the Players (Harman in 2024, Kevin Kisner in 2015 and Chip Beck in 1989).
BIRDIE: Justin Thomas. Coming off a 79-79 performance at Bay Hill in his first start of the season back from injury, the 2021 Players champ found his rhythm on a course he loves playing. A pair of 68s had JT firmly in the mix and he kept plugging his way to T8 despite making a complete hash of the sixth hole on Saturday (triple bogey). It’s nice having Thomas healthy and getting his groove back.
BOGEY: Back injuries. While Thomas returned from microdiscectomy surgery in November to fix a herniated disc, Collin Morikawa exited after only one hole citing a back injury. McIlroy opted to try to defend his title despite no practice rounds after withdrawing on the weekend at Bay Hill with back spasms. Austin Smotherman, who also withdrew from the third round at Bay Hill citing a lower back injury, showed no ill effects in claiming a share of the first-round lead at Sawgrass. This really is one area where today’s players should not follow Tiger Woods’ lead.
PAR: Players Club. For only $11,000, 750 people with way too much disposable income have access to the clubhouse, private viewing areas, unlimited gourmet food and drink (including the new Iron & Wedge steakhouse next to the 18th green), hand-rolled cigars, car washes, haircuts, shoeshines and access to the limited-edition Goat logo merch. Not everybody has access to Berckmans Place at Augusta, so the waiting list for this alternative is years long.
BIRDIE: Adam Scott. The 45-year-old Aussie teed it up for the 24th consecutive Players, and the 2004 champion notched his 23rd and 24th birdies on the 17th hole on Thursday and Saturday. He’s inching closer and on pace to catch the record of 26 birdies on the iconic par-3 made by Bernhard Langer in his 26 career Players starts.
BIRDIE: Brian Rolapp. The new CEO deftly laid out his vision for building a PGA Tour schedule and structure that “will outlive us all.” The former NFL executive has a clarity of communication that instills confidence he’s the right man for the job. The word often overheard among even cynical journalists in the room was “impressive.” If he pulls this vision off while getting buy-in from all the tour’s constituents, it will be impressive indeed.
BIRDIE: Gary Woodland. The 2019 U.S. Open champion revealed in an emotional Golf Channel interview that he’s suffering from PTSD since having a brain lesion removed in 2023. “Inside, I feel like I’m dying, and I feel like I’m living a lie,” Woodland said. The PGA Tour has put security protocols in place to help Woodland feel more comfortable on the course. Despite crying jags in on-course bathrooms and scoring trailers, Woodland plays on. “I have a lot of fight in me and I’m not going to let this thing win. But it’s been hard,” he said. He missed the cut at Sawgrass.
BIRDIE: The Gauntlet. Arguably the most exciting finishing stretch in all of golf, Nos. 16, 17 and 18 provide a perfect mix of opportunity and danger that adds spice to every Players round. Making zero apologies to the overserved 16th hole in Phoenix, the two best places to park yourself for an entire day of unforgettable golf are around the 16th and 17th greens at Sawgrass and Amen Corner at Augusta.
BOGEY: Pierceson Coody. Sitting precariously at No. 48 in the Official World Golf Ranking, Charles Coody’s grandson picked a bad time to have his worst professional performance by shooting 75-83 in his Players debut. The 26-year-old rookie is now No. 52 and needs to step up the next two weeks to climb back into the top 50 to become the first grandson of a former green jacket winner to qualify for the Masters.
YAHTZEE: Max Homa. There are a lot of ways to start off even par through five holes, but few can do it with the inconsistent panache of the still-searching Homa, who went eagle-birdie-double bogey-par-bogey on holes 10 through 14 to kick off his Players on Thursday. He made a comeback 4-footer to avoid adding a triple to his card on 15. He ended up shooting 1-under 71. “One of the weirder days I’ve ever had,” said Homa, who finished T32.
ACE: Chad Ramey. It took until Sunday before anyone made a hole-in-one, and it came on the 169-yard 13th hole when Ramey’s ball took the slope perfectly and fell in the cup for his first ace on tour. It marked the seventh consecutive Players with at least one ace recorded. Ramey’s Sunday par-3 adventures included an unenviable chip off the bulkhead on 17 to save bogey.
QUAD: Shane Lowry. Since his shocking meltdown blowing a three-shot lead with three to play at PGA National, the Irishman who clinched retention of the Ryder Cup last fall has fallen into a finishing funk that’s hard to watch. He made a mess down the stretch Friday at Bay Hill to miss the cut and his missed weekend at Sawgrass was facilitated Thursday by the 1,000th and 1,001st balls hit into the water on 18 (since they started tracking them in 2003) leading to a quadruple-bogey 8.
BOGEY: Sub-Optum-al. While the Players has borrowed a lot of wonderful features from the folks at Augusta National, the occasional graphic projection of sponsors on the turf during broadcasts is not one of them. While not as bad as the LED glass floor the Big 12 used for its basketball tournaments until enough players slipped and complained about the high-tech failure, sullying the playing surface with commercial clutter needs to stop.
BIRDIE: “Chasing Sunday.” A mic’d-up, NFL Films-style recap of the Players debuted Tuesday night, featuring players who agreed to be followed all week including Akshay Bhatia, Rickie Fowler, Chris Gotterup and Si Woo Kim. There’s no frozen tundra or John Facenda to immortalize it, but PGA Tour Studios is starting to put its access to work in fun ways for golf fans.