Cameron Young will be hoping that his strokes gained numbers around the green at the Hero World Challenge are a sign of what is to come in 2026.
It is fair to say few players have been more impressive over the last few months than Cameron Young. As well as securing his first PGA Tour win at the Wyndham Championship, the 28-year-old went on to produce a superb performance at the Ryder Cup.
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Young has the game to become one of the best around. But there are areas for concern heading into 2026.
He was 107th on the PGA Tour for strokes gained around the putting surfaces in 2025. However, according to Data Golf, he was the fourth best player in the field in that category at the Hero World Challenge this past week.
The one piece of chipping advice Cameron Young always gives amateur golfers
Much like putting, having confidence in your chipping is extremely important – particularly for amateur golfers.
Everyone who has played the game probably knows the feeling of dreading the prospect of either catching the ball heavy and failing to make the green, or thinning it through the putting surface.
And speaking in a video with Titleist, Young suggested that most golfers would benefit from perfecting one shot rather than trying to build a repertoire.
“The one thing I say to amateur golfers is that if you have a shot, it doesn’t matter if it’s pitching wedge or sand wedge, if you can strike it consistently and play that shot 90 per cent of the time you can make it work and get it to reasonable par putts a lot,” he said.
“You don’t have to know every shot to be able to get a lot of things up and down. Even if it’s a 53 or a 52 degree wedge, if you can strike it consistently and know what you are going to get, you can play it around a bunker to 12 feet and that’s better than playing with a club you are not comfortable with and getting it wrong.
“Not all of us have time to master two or three shots.”
Cameron Young explains how to play out of a divot
It can be extremely frustrating for players when they hit a great shot only to find that their ball has come to rest in an old divot.
Depending on the size of the divot, it is not the end of the world if a player is facing a full shot. However, it is much more challenging when that divot complicates a chip shot.
Many golfers will immediately assume that nothing good can come of their upcoming shot. But Young went on to explain how he would approach a chip where the lie is far from ideal.
What is the one golf rule you would change if you had the opportunity?
“I would probably reach for the 62. That’s what I practice with the most, so that’s what I’m most comfortable with strike,” he said.
“With something like this I would probably go to playing a bit of a lower shot. All my focus would be on strike, so it would be trying to be a little bit steeper and a bit more on top of the back of the ball, especially given that I have green to work with.
“I don’t need to get it up in the air and stop it at all. So the shot that I feel I can most confidently strike is a little bit back in my stance, hitting down on it pretty good, and almost feeling a little bit of a draw, just to make sure the face keeps up and closes on the ball.”
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