It wasn't that long ago that Cameron Young was seemingly on the cusp of becoming one of the PGA Tour's biggest stars.
While the New York native couldn't quite break through with that first victory, which still eludes him, by the way, he notched seven runner-up finishes in his first 60 PGA Tour starts, the most in 40 years without visiting the winner's circle.
One of those second-place finishes came at The Open Championship in 2022, one of five top-10s Young has recorded in major championships. A pair of those came at The Masters, as he tied for seventh at Augusta National in 2023 and tied for ninth a year ago.
But the last year hasn't been overly kind to the two-time Korn Ferry Tour winner.
Following his most recent runner-up finish at last year's Valspar Championship, Young reached his peak in the Official World Golf Ranking at No. 13. Since then, though, he's dropped 46 slots and came to this year's Masters as the 59th-ranked player in the world.
Already having missed five of 10 cuts in 2025 coming into The Masters, it looked as if the 27-year-old was going to just sneak into the weekend field at Augusta—until disaster struck.
Cameron Young played himself out of The Masters with a disastrous putting display at the 16th hole
After opening his 2025 Masters on Thursday with an even-par round of 72, Young went out in the middle of the pack on Friday and had a fairly boring scorecard through his first 11 holes, making a bogey at the fourth, a birdie at the 10th, and nine pars to remain at even.
But that's when things got interesting.
With the cut line hovering at 2-over for most of the afternoon, Young doubled the par-3 12th, birdied the par-5 13th, and bogeyed the par-4 14th, thus putting himself right on the number, where he remained following a par at the par-5 15th.
At the par-3 16th, the Wake Forest alum pushed his tee shot right, leaving him a delicate chip shot to the back-right hole location. Had his second gone about two feet further on the bounce, it likely would've been absolutely perfect. But it didn't, thus leaving him with a slick but makeable 12-foot putt for par.
And that's where things got really interesting.
Young never had the line on that first putt, leaving it out to the right. Okay, we thought. He can make the tap-in for bogey and still birdie one of the last two to make the weekend.
But that tap-in for bogey didn't drop either. Nor did the tap-in for double bogey. He finally found the hole on the next one, giving him a triple-bogey six and leaving him at 5-over for the tournament.
Tell Cameron Young to “just tap it in” at your own risk going forward pic.twitter.com/M2XZCaIy77
— Shooter McGavin (@ShooterMcGavin_) April 11, 2025
Brutal.
Clearly distraught at that point, he just looked defeated the rest of the way and bogeyed the final two holes to finish with a 7-over 79, five shots out of where he needed to be.
The struggle continues for Cameron Young.