Weekly Fantasy Golf Recap: It's a Young Man's Game

It's one thing to beat Scottie Scheffler. It's another to beat him badly. It's yet another to have to do it while playing alongside such an imposing figure for most of the tournament.

Cameron Young was grouped with the world No. 1 for three rounds of the Cadillac Championship. He drubbed Scheffler by seven shots on Thursday and never looked back -- at Scheffler or anyone else -- in running away to win by six shots in the PGA Tour's return to Doral.

Young has thus followed up his win at THE PLAYERS Championship in March with a tie for third at the Masters and now another win at a Signature Event. He is ranked No. 3 in the world.

Along with another multiple-time winner, Matt Fitzpatrick, plus Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, they are starting to separate themselves from the rest of the Tour, creating a Big Four.

Only this past week, there was just a Big One.

"This week he hit a lot of quality shots," Scheffler said of Young, after playing with him on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. "A lot of quality iron shots, quality tee shots, especially on the holes where it really matters. There are some tee shots out here that are really difficult and he stepped up and hit the shots. On the greens he was unbelievable this week. First 27 holes I don't think he missed anything really. It was nuts. Guy was just holing everything. When you're hitting really good shots and holing a lot of putts, that's a recipe to run away with a golf tournament."

Young shot 19-under to Scheffler's 13-under as runner-up. It was a seven-shot difference after 54 holes, and Young barely gave anything back.

That one-shot difference came courtesy of Young himself, after he called a penalty on himself on No. 1 after he saw his ball move ever so slightly upon addressing it in the fairway.

Interestingly, and perhaps unfortunately for all the other golfers, it appears Young didn't have all of his best stuff. While he did rank third in SG: Off-the-Tee -- Scheffler attested to all the great drives -- and first in SG: Putting -- Scheffler attested to that too -- his iron play was kind of mid. He ranked 26th in SG: Approach and 46th in greens in regulation.

Regardless, Young will be among the favorites this week at the Truist Championship -- without Scheffler in the field but with McIlroy returning -- and the PGA Championship the following week at Aronimink.

Young likes his chances there to win a first major.

"Yeah, I think it sets me up well. I've been playing great, and the goal is just to put myself in a position to win as much as I can. There's going to be days where it's your day and you have a great Sunday and give yourself a chance. There's going to be days where you hang around and something strange happens and you win.

"To me, the biggest thing right now is just to continue to put myself in position where those things can happen. So, you know, another kind of checkmark in that book this week.

"Obviously it's a better position than you can really ever hope for, but yeah, just happy to have put myself around the lead again and very thankful to have finished it off."

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Scottie Scheffler
All he does is finish second. For his third straight tournament, Scheffler was the runner-up. Yes, it's fair to say that Young or Fitzpatrick is the Player of the Year so far. But it's Scheffler who is No. 1 in the FedExCup Standings. We'll next see him at the PGA Championship in two weeks, as he's opted to skip this week's Truist Championship for the third straight year.

Ben Griffin
The follow-up to Griffin's breakthrough season had not been going smoothly. He had zero top-10s and no top-25s in three months – unless you want to include the Zurich Classic team event, and we don't. So this solo third was much needed. Griffin is ranked outside the top 100 in both SG: Off-the-Tee and Approach. His wedges and putter have been carrying him. Truth be told, that was the same scenario at the Cadillac, so we'll reserve judgment on whether Griffin is "back."

Adam Scott
It was a nightmare Thursday for Scott, who played the wrong ball on No. 8 and wound up with a double bogey en route to a 4-over 76. The fact that he battled back to finish with a share of fourth place is remarkable. He shot 66-64 on the weekend, led the field in SG: Approach and finished fifth in SG: Off-the-Tee. But his most amazing stat is that he's 45 years old.

Sepp Straka
Is there a more under-the-radar top player than Straka? He doesn't deliver every week. But he does often enough to stand 11th in the standings and top-15 in the world rankings. He tied for fourth -- his third top-10 of the season -- with the other two coming at another Signature Event at Pebble Beach and THE PLAYERS Championship. Straka is ranked 13th on Tour in Approach and 15th Tee-to-Green. That'll get you a bunch of top-10s.

Si Woo Kim
If you are waiting for the clock to strike 12 on Kim, you're still waiting. After going through a stretch of mediocrity following a torrid start, he has now strung together consecutive top-5s in Signature Events with a share of fourth in Miami. You know how good Kim's iron play has been? He's doing all this while ranked 120th in SG: Putting.

Alex Smalley
Smalley is one of the players who had to, you know, play his way into a signature event (technically, they all did but you know what we mean). Not only was he in the Cadillac but he's in next week's Truist, too. He has six top-25s on the season, including at THE PLAYERS. This week, he tied for seventh. Smalley is now up to 35th in the point standings, meaning he's on the edge of TOUR Championship territory. He is ranked top-25 in both Approach and Tee-to-Green, stats that will play on any course.

Alex Noren
Noren is the rare player whose world ranking is better than his position in the FedExCup Standings. He was ranked 22nd in the OWGR coming in, and he will improve after tying for seventh. That's his first top-10 of the season on the PGA Tour. Noren is great with his wedges and putter, but he's woefully short off the tee, which always makes his margin for error thinner than it is for other players.

Alex Fitzpatrick
It's one thing to win a tournament with your brother, and wonder how much of the weight he carried. But with the Zurich Classic two-man event in the rearview mirror and big brother nowhere to be found, the younger Fitzpatrick turned in a fantastic tie for ninth. And suddenly, you have to wonder how big of a fantasy option he'll be the rest of the season. We know this: It's a lot more than we thought a week ago.

Rickie Fowler
Fowler missed the cut in the two Texas events last month when he was fighting to get into the Masters. After sadly watching McIlroy win on TV like the rest of us, Fowler has returned to play with a vengeance, with top-10s in consecutive Signature Events. This week, he tied for ninth. As disappointing as it was to miss Augusta, Fowler is playing well enough this season to be in the TOUR Championship if it started today.

Jordan Spieth
After an opening 65, Spieth jockeyed for the lead with Young for a bit over the first two days. But he couldn't sustain the pace, and he wound up tied for 18th. That's sort of who Spieth has been this season: occasional flashes of brilliance but no longer with enough firepower to stay with the biggest guns on Tour. He now has six top-25s in 11 starts, which is good, but none of those resulted in a top-10, which is bad.

Justin Thomas
Thomas has been kind of an afterthought this season. He started late following offseason back surgery and, outside of one week, he's been meh. Granted, that one week was THE PLAYERS Championship when he tied for eighth. But that was his only top-25 until this week's T23. Thomas is really struggling with his irons, ranking outside the top 100 in SG: Approach, and really, really, really struggling with his putter, ranking outside the top 150. Ouch.

Tommy Fleetwood
Fleetwood tied for 23rd. All the expectations that he would contend for titles with more regularity, and even win more often, after he broke through at the TOUR Championship last year simply has not materialized. His iron play, ranked outside the top 50 on Tour in SG: Approach, and his putting, ranked just inside the top 100, have just not been good enough.

Collin Morikawa
It seems we can put Morikawa's back issues, um, behind us for now. But not his putting issues. In the 72-man field, he ranked 71st in SG: Putting. And with his iron play taking an uncharacteristic week off, ranking 34th in Approach, well, it wasn't a good week. Morikawa tied for 62nd.

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