There are Sundays at majors that clarify a player’s ceiling, and then there are Sundays that remind everyone how quickly a tournament can turn. Cameron Young’s final-round 64 at The Open Championship did both. After a disappointing Saturday had knocked him out of the front edge of the conversation, he responded at Royal Birkdale Golf Club in England with the kind of round that keeps a name on the leaderboard when the pressure is highest.
Young finished in a tie for fourth, reaching 9-under and ending two shots back after a closing push that was far better than what he showed a day earlier. That Saturday fade, brought on by two late bogeys on the back nine, looked costly at the time. Instead, the 64 gave him a third top-four finish and turned what had looked like a missed opportunity into a strong major result.
A fast finish in a difficult setting
The number that matters most is the 64, because it tells the story of a player who found scoring when the field needed it most. At Royal Birkdale, where The Open can punish even small errors, Young did not simply survive the final round. He attacked it. That matters in a championship like this, where the difference between a solid week and a contending week can be one clean run of holes.
The broader leaderboard made the performance stand out even more. Scottie Scheffler finished at 7-under, while Young rose to 9-under and into fourth. In a field where the coverage also pointed to players chasing the best major finish of their careers, Young’s result fit the same theme: the final round was as much about position and proof as it was about the trophy itself.
What the turnaround says about Young
Young’s week is a useful reminder that major championships are often measured in layers. On Saturday, he was undone by late mistakes and drifted from contention. On Sunday, he showed the opposite version of that same equation: enough birdies, enough control and enough resilience to repair the damage. That does not make the Saturday round disappear, but it does make the final result harder to dismiss.
There is also value in what the finish says about his current place in the game. A tie for fourth at The Open is not a consolation prize. It is a marker. It shows a player capable of hanging around major contention, even after a setback, and then producing a round that changes the tone of the week. In a sport that can swing on one stretch of holes, that is not a small thing.
For Young, the takeaway is simple enough: the tournament was not won on Saturday, but it was salvaged on Sunday. And at Royal Birkdale, that still counted for plenty.
