Cameron Young is officially “Mr. 1000” on the PGA Tour. With his win at the Wyndham Championship, he became the 1000th unique player to win a Tour-sanctioned event. After Young finally reached the pinnacle, the Dan’s Golf World Show did a deep dive on his journey.
Young’s road to his first win is unique. The kid started this run at a Monday qualifier on the Korn Ferry Tour. He qualified for the Pinnacle Bank Championship where he finished T11.
That finish earned him an invite to another Korn Ferry Tour event, and Young continued to place high. This cycle continued until he placed 2nd and earned himself a temporary membership.
The greatest achievement of his Korn Ferry Tour career: becoming just the 10th player to ever win back-to-back events on the tour. In the case of most golfers, those wins would guarantee a PGA Tour promotion, but there was one problem, it happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Korn Ferry Tour had paused full-status promotions during the pandemic, making it difficult for Young to make the step up. However, because of his performance, the Korn Ferry Tour allowed him to be promoted and the PGA Tour career of Mr. 1000 was born.
With Young winning the final event of the regular season, the FedEx Cup playoffs are underway and this year is more important than ever. The Tour announced earlier this season that they are eliminating the “starting strokes” element of the Tour Championship.
This means that the Tour Championship will be played as a regular tournament, despite where the golfers rank in the FedEx Cup standings. While this makes for very entertaining golf, it means that players at the top of the standings have no reason to play in the FedEx St.Jude or BMW Championships.
For example, Rory McIlroy is sitting comfortably behind Scottie Scheffler in the standings, so he is opting out of playing this week in Memphis.
Regardless, Rory, Scottie, and most of the other big names will be there for the Tour Championship in a few weeks, all playing from even par.
To learn more about the new FedEx Cup format and its implications on the Ryder Cup selections, watch the latest Dan’s Golf World Show above and check out more from the show on SI Golf.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Taking a Deep Dive on Cameron Young’s Journey and the Revamped PGA Tour Playoffs.
