Welcome back to the Monday Finish, where weāre just a couple wins from the Ryder Cup conversation. To the news!
GOLF STUFF I LIKE
Revenge tour.
Because of the Netflix episode and because of his subsequent surprise captaincy, you very likely remember that Keegan Bradley was snubbed from the 2023 U.S. Ryder Cup team that headed to Rome. Bradley was No. 11 on the list but was passed over while Nos. 12, 13 and 15 (Sam Burns, Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas) were selected instead.
What you might have forgotten ā because he had no Netflix episode and because he speaks softly, when he speaks at all ā is that Cameron Young was No. 9 on that yearās list. Young was clearly a mega-talent; entering that decision heād finished T8 or better at four of his previous seven majors, heād logged 10 top-three finishes worldwide in his previous two seasons and heād made the U.S. Presidents Cup team the fall prior, as runaway Rookie of the Year. But a middling stretch of early-summer golf was enough for the powers that be to leave him off the list. Would he have been selected if heād had the same results but different friends? That was worth wondering, if tough to say for sure. Young became something of a forgotten snub. But there was one person who didnāt forget: Young himself.
While we heard from Bradley in the days that followed that 2023 decision, Young disappeared for two months. When he resurfaced at the World Wide Technology Championship in Mexico, he was measured in his response and said how thankful heād been to spend extra time with his family. But he was also defiant.
āI think I walk away from it thinking, maybe I feel like I should have made the team but it wasnāt up to me. And two years from now, if I put myself in a position where they donāt have a choice, thatād be the better way to do it,ā he said then.
Here we are, two years later. And Young has been clear about his intentions.
As early as Friday at the Wyndham Championship, Young admitted that he was thinking big-picture.
āIāve got a goal. In the middle of September Iād like to be in New York playing on that Ryder Cup team,ā he said.
On Saturday he admitted a little more. That playing at Bethpage would be a dream, for one thing āĀ āone of my favorite golf courses in the world,ā said the native New Yorker āĀ but also that the previous Ryder Cup cycle had left him motivated.
āObviously Iād love to make it. It hurt pretty bad to miss it a couple years ago. I was ninth on the points list and didnāt get picked, so I was a bit frustrated with that,ā he said. āSet out the year to give our captain no choice, and I donāt know if Iām in a position to do that or not, but it would take some really good golf between now and then.ā
Young followed that with some really good golf. He blitzed the Wyndham field; in the end his winning margin was six strokes and could have been eight or 10 or more. He didnāt just sneak cross the winning threshold āĀ he burst through it like the Kool-Aid Man.
Youngās summer turnaround hasnāt been random.
He changed caddies ahead of the Truist Championship in May, hiring fellow Wake Forest Demon Deacon Kyle Sterbinsky, and logged three top-seven finishes in his next five starts.
āSome of it is just grinding through tougher times and finding better ones. Heās one of my best friends, a college teammate. Heās great at reading greens,ā Young said. Heās gained strokes putting in seven of nine starts since then and led the Wyndham in strokes gained putting; these three months have been by far the best putting performance of his pro career.
Young changed golf balls, too āĀ to a mysterious Titleist ProV1x prototype, āsomething weāve worked on over the last nine, 10 months,ā he said. Young has always been a high-spin player; itās fair to assume this new ball helps reduce spin.
One other intriguing change: Young said that about 10 days ago he went back to hitting draws, something heād done when he first turned pro.
āIn trying to learn some more shots, I kind of went the other way,ā he said. In other words, in chasing a more neutral ball flight he feels like he lost some of his swing identity and some of his repeatability. This week he committed to hitting draws everywhere.
āIām sure thereās a couple you could go back to some right pins where conventional wisdom says donāt start it right of the right fringe, but I told myself I was going to do it and stuck to it all week,ā he said. He talked about not having to āstart overā ahead of each shot. āI think it might be difficult in some spots, but right now it seems like maybe part of the answer, who knows,ā he shrugged.
Finally Young said he has been working on his mindset. His rookie year heād finished second so many times that he got sick of contending without winning. More recently, though?
āI started playing worse and the good finishes were less frequent, and I became happier about those good finishes, I think,ā he said.
Why did Young win this time and not the others? Itās impossible to isolate a single variable; itās some unsolvable combination plus the right time, right place, right whims of the golfing gods. But now Young has ditched the forever-bridesmaid moniker and is up to No. 15 in the Ryder Cup ranking, too. Heās planning to continue that climb these next two weeks as the playoffs begin. Itās been feast or famine since Youngās caddie switch in May; in nine starts he has four finishes of T7 or better as well as four finishes of T46 or worse. But it could be a redemption story for Young, and it would only seem fitting that his fellow snub from 2023, U.S. captain Keegan Bradley, would be the man to make the call.
Thereās another particularly chaotic option on the board, too: the final spot on the U.S. team could come down to Young or Bradley. Redemption for one, heartbreak for the other, this time with Bradley in control of the machine.
WINNERS
Who won the week?
Miyu Yamashita and a wild ārookieā season
Sheās technically a rookie on the LPGA Tour, but we should have seen Miyu Yamashitaās first major championship coming.
In fairness itās been tough to see anything coming on the LPGA Tour this season; following the AIG Womenās Open the league has now showcased 21 winners in 20 events (19 unique individuals plus the two-player Dow Championship). But Yamashita, the rising Japanese star who turned 24 on Saturday, has stacked up wins on the JLPGA for several seasons in a row (sheās won a dozen JLPGA events since 2022) and contended at multiple majors. She came in with three top-10s on the LPGA in her last five starts. And the win boosts her to No. 6 in the Rolex Rankings.
Yamashita joins Ayaka Furue, Mao Saigo and Yuka Saso as the fourth Japanese player to win a major in the last two years. She also led a group of three Japanese players in the top four at Royal Porthcawl. Most importantly sheās the winner of the final major of 2025 for either the men or the women.
And a nice frontrunner for Rookie of the Year.
Cameron Young and the death of a question
On Saturday night, before he went to sleep on a five-stroke lead, Young was asked whether he had a monkey on his back. I liked his answer.
āNot really. If you had asked me two years ago Iād probably say yes, but if you go back through, I finished second a bunch but Iāve gotten beat a lot. Iāve played some good golf on Sunday in really all those cases. So thatās all Iām trying to do tomorrow. Iām starting in a nice spot, so Iām just looking to try to beat second place by as many as I can.ā
When Young bogeyed No. 1 it was impossible not to wonder if this was the beginning of another Sunday heartbreak. But his self-belief shone through; heās never been a choker, he just hadnāt won. He responded to that bogey with a run of five consecutive birdies. The rest was history.
The other Young
Youād assume that Cameron was the only first-time winner of his surname on Sunday. But how ābout 33-year-old Scotsman Daniel Young winning on home turf at the HotelPlanner Tour (formerly Challenge Tour)ās Farmfoods Scottish Challenge? He, too, entered Sunday with a big lead and he, too, stumbled out of the gate, making double bogey at No. 1. But he righted the ship, hit nearly every green the rest of the way and hung on for a one-shot win that moves him to No. 6 on the tourās order of merit.
āI am lost for words,ā said Young.
One more first-timer
Julian Suri won the Utah Championship on the Korn Ferry Tour, earning his first KFT title at 34 years old. Suri was a presence in the top 100 in the world back in 2017, when he won on the DP World Tour. Now heāll have a realistic chance to get back to the PGA Tour as heās up to No. 16 in the KFT standings.
NOT-WINNERS
A few notes on assorted others:
Charley Hull finished second place at the AIG Womenās Open. Hers was a stirring weekend charge; itās worth remembering it that way even as the stats will show another heartbreaking near-miss.
Most runner-up finishes in majors, since 2015:
ā Jamie Kennedy (@jamierkennedy) August 4, 2025
4: Charley Hull (yesterday)
4: Rory McIlroy
4: Brooks Koepka
4: Justin Rose
3: Louis Oosthuizen
3: Nelly Korda
3: Dustin Johnson
3: Lexi Thompson
3: So-yeon Ryu
Hull is the only one on that list without a major victory. pic.twitter.com/pvkN8a35TV
Yani Tseng made the cut in Wales; while she finished T63 her journey to this point makes that a significant victory.
Congrats to Yani Tseng on making her first cut at a major in eight years . . . and for adding a new chapter to one of the wildest Wikipedia major grids in golf history. pic.twitter.com/GJ5nQiMQ3B
ā Alex Myers (@AlexMyers3) August 4, 2025
Jeeno Thitikul finished T30 in Wales but took over the World No. 1 ranking from Nelly Korda, who finished T36. Korda had held the crown for 17 months.
Mac Meissner finished solo second at the Wyndham and made a massive jump in the FedEx Cup; it wasnāt enough to get him into the playoffs but his move from No. 152 to No. 86 means heās in a much better place heading to the fall.
Ditto for Alex Noren, who finished T3 to jump from No. 141 to No. 105.
And Joel Dahmenās T15 finish has him back inside that magic top-100 number; he jumped from No. 101 to 93.
But it was Chris Kirk who emerged the lone player to start the week outside the playoffs (No. 73) and play his way in. He did so in methodical fashion, making birdie on two of his first five holes on Sunday and then making 13 pars to finish T5, jumping to No. 61 in the process.
Taylor Montgomery finished T2 at the Utah Championship, logging his sixth runner-up on the Korn Ferry Tour, tied for the most ever without a win.
Blades Brown, the heralded 18-year-old mega-talent, Monday qualified and then finished T7, earning Special Temporary Membership for the remainder of the 2025 season in the process.
Preston Summerhays, playing in his home state, finished T7; his uncle Daniel finished T22.
SHORT HITTERS
5 Tour pros who just missed the playoffs.
Davis Thompson
Thompson was T8 heading to No. 18 on Sunday and a par would have sent him through to the playoffs. Instead he missed the fairway and wound up with a short putt for par, which he missed. He finishes his regular season at No. 71, a devastating five points behind Matti Schmid, who birdied his final three holes.
Mark Hubbard
Hubbard began the week at No. 98 and needed a T2 finish to get the job done. He put together a heck of a weekend rally but wound up one shot shy of that T2; his T3 has him well positioned for full Tour status at No. 77 but heāll no doubt leave Sunday searching for one fewer stroke.
Gary Woodland
Woodlandās comeback nearly got its latest inspiring chapter on Sunday; he entered the final round squarely on that top-70 bubble. But his even-par final round saw him slip from T9 to T23 and into 72nd place.
Nicolai Hojgaard (and Rasmus, too)
Nicolai rallied from four over par on Thursday to make the cut at three under on Friday, but because he entered at No. 71 needed to make something special happen on the weekend. Instead he finished T55, ending this segment of his PGA Tour season at No. 73 in the FedEx Cup. Ditto for his twin brother Rasmus, who finished T34 and settled at No. 85 for the year. Now itāll be interesting to see if they head back to Europe in hopes of bolstering their Ryder Cup resumes while most of their competition plays the Tour playoffs.
Ben An
It was a promising middle of the season for Ben An, whose postseason status seemed likely after a T14 at the Travelers put him to No. 57. Instead he finished the year T60-79th-MC-MC-MC and was the lone player to slide from in (No. 69) to out (No. 74) at the Wyndham.
RYDER CUP WATCH
Young and wild.
On the U.S. side, Cameron Young reinserted himself in the Ryder Cup discussion, with bonus points for having won the New York State Open at Bethpage as an amateur. Keegan Bradley slightly complicated his own case with an MC. Andrew Novak has an uphill battle after an MC, too. And Ben Griffin improved his status somewhat with a T11 finish.
On the European side, there were two competing storylines. First there were those whose PGA Tour seasons have now ended āĀ the aforementioned Hojgaards plus Matt Wallace, who finished T27 and failed to improve on his No. 92 status. And then there were those improving their standing: Aaron Rai (T5) and Matt Fitzpatrick (T8) moved up one spot each to Nos. 14 and 12 on Team Europeās points list.
TEAM USA RYDER CUP RANKINGS
1. Scheffler 2. Schauffele 3. Spaun 4. Henley 5. DeChambeau 6. English 7. Thomas 8. Morikawa 9. Griffin 10. Bradley 11. McNealy 12. Harman 13. Novak 14. Cantlay 15. Young
TEAM EUROPE RYDER CUP RANKINGSĀ (As of July 7)
1. McIlroy 2. MacIntyre 3. Fleetwood 4. Hatton 5. Lowry 6. Straka 7. R. Hojgaard 8. Rose 9. Aberg 10. Hovland 11. Wallace 12. Fitzpatrick 13. Detry 14. Rai 15. J. Smith
Complete standingsĀ here.
ONE SWING THOUGHT
From Cameron Young.
Young grew up playing Sleepy Hollow, which is an elite golf course with notably slopey greens. He guessed that helped him playing Sedgefieldās also-notably-slopey greens āĀ and likely contributed to his standout weeks at Philly Cricket Club and Oakmont earlier this season. The basic theory: if you grow up on relatively flat greens itās tough to adjust to putts that break a. ton.
āGrowing up on greens like that I think it just, I think it just trains your mind to just see some higher lines,ā Young said. āOut here [at Wyndham], I donāt know how many putts are missed low versus high. Itās got to be drastically on the low side through the week. So I think just growing up on those kinds of greens, youāre just more familiar with how to play some of those. Itās just ingrained into you from a young age.ā
ONE BIG QUESTION
What does Roryās skip mean?
Weāre just a few years removed from Rory McIlroy helping to stabilize āĀ and remake ā the PGA Tour alongside Tiger Woods. One of the tenets at the time: the Tourās biggest stars would play in all its biggest events. Itās notable, then, that McIlroy is the star who has missed by far the most Signature Events. When he skips this weekās FedEx St. Jude Championship, itāll be the fourth heās missed this year (the Sentry, RBC Heritage and Memorial).
This has rankled the anti-Rory crowd, but McIlroy has telegraphed since last yearās playoffs that he wouldnāt play this event. Itās the latest chapter in McIlroyās separation from the Tour, which began the day it brokered its secret deal with LIV. Instead heās focusing on an increasingly global schedule that includes trips to Ireland, India and Australia this fall as he plays more on his home DP World Tour. The question, then: does the Tour need to make some sort of adjustments given that arguably its biggest star has played just one (non-major) PGA Tour event in the U.S. since May 11?
ONE THING TO WATCH
Joel on Geno.
Itāll be reassuring for plenty of golf fans to know that Joel and Geno are still in near-daily communication and still, per Dahmen, best friends.
NEWS FROM SEATTLE
Monday Finish HQ.
Ballard FC lost in the finals of USL2 this weekend āĀ congrats to the Vermont Green. If you understand any of those words you are in way deep on U.S. soccer. And if youāve made it this far youāre way deep in golf, tooā¦
Weāll see you next week!
Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments atĀ dylan_dethier@golf.com.