AUGUSTA, Ga. — Westchester’s Cameron Young, who grew up playing Sleepy Hollow Country Club, is on the cusp of contention to win not only his first career PGA Tour event, but his first major championship.
Young stands at 1-under par entering the final 36 holes, five shots behind the lead.
But he could have been a lot closer.
Young, who shot a 2-under-par 70 in the first round, had his score as low as 5-under through eight holes of his second round, but gave four shots back in his final 11 holes.
“The wind is all over the place and nowhere at all, and it’s just trying to take the best guess as you can,” Young said of the blustery conditions.
Asked if he’s ever had to guess on the wind as often as he did Friday, he said, “Very few times. It’s very windy and the trees are all 190,000 feet tall.”
nowhere at all” during the second round of the Masters. USA TODAY NETWORK
England’s Tyrrell Hatton, not known for his patience, was irked at the slow play of the group in front of him (Patrick Reed, Sungjae Im and Kurt Kitayama) for the past two rounds.
“Yeah, the lads in front have been so slow,” Hatton said. “It’s pretty poor from the officials that it took 32 holes to put them on the clock. [On Thursday], they’d lost a hole and a half, and then they weren’t any better even [Friday] morning. Then for the second round they were just brutal.
“It was really hard to get a rhythm, so it was disappointing that it took 32 holes for an official to go, ‘Oh, we’ve put the group in front on the clock.’”
Neal Shipley, a 23-year-old Pittsburgh native who finished runner-up in the U.S. Amateur, was the only amateur of the five in the field to make the cut.
Shipley shot a 1-under-par 71 in his first round and had it to as low as 3-under for the tournament through three holes of his second round.
But he slipped back from there, finishing with a second-round 76 to stand at 3-over for the week.
But that was good enough to get him into the weekend.
“I just had a few bad swings coming into the back nine, and didn’t really play my best golf on that stretch 10 through 12,” he said. “I was just able to get some momentum going with a really good putt on 13 and just kind of kept it steady coming into the clubhouse from there.”“I was certainly thinking about low am,’’ Shipley went on. “I thought I had a chance to compete with all those guys. I thought I showed that [Thursday] in those really tough conditions, to shoot 1-under, that I belong out here. It’s just kind of a matter of proving that.
He said he hopes this won’t be his only Masters.
“You never know with how your career goes, injuries, or just maybe things don’t turn out the way you want to,’’ Shipley said. “I certainly don’t think it’s going to be my last Masters, but I think you have to treat every Masters as if it’s your last probably until you win.
“That’s just a thought process, just to enjoy it. I think that kept me loose and not as nervous, just trying to enjoy the moment.’’
He said the walk up 18 on Sunday “is going to be really, really cool,’’ adding, “It would be cool if I could put in some low numbers this weekend and really climb up that leaderboard. I’d really enjoy that.’’
