Cameron Young’s ball striking is perhaps his greatest asset as a golfer.
Since graduating to the PGA Tour in 2022, the 29-year-old pro has ranked inside the top 35 in SG: Off the Tee every season and has twice ranked inside the top 15 in SG: Tee to Green. This season, as his putter has heated up to complement his lethal ball striking, he’s had a career year, winning the Players Championship and finishing top five in two majors.
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Young’s swing is certainly effective, but it also comes with its own idiosyncrasies. Chief among them is the slight pause he makes at the top of his backswing.
“I don’t feel it, obviously,” Young said in a recent episode of Warming Up. “It looks like it hangs there more than it does.”
So, how did Young’s patented pause come to be? He explained it to GOLF’s Dylan Dethier.
Why Young pauses
Although Young’s pause has been compared to other pros who also take a beat at the top of their backswing (see: Hideki Matsuyama), Young feels his is distinct in its own way.
“It’s not quite like Hideki,” Young said. “He really is structured and stops. And I don’t have the flexibility to stay up there like that.”
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Like most unique moves in the swing, Young doesn’t even feel himself pausing at the top. However, the reason for the brief pause actually has to do with the structure of his lead arm at the top of the swing.
While many players strive for a straight lead arm at the top, Young falls in the camp of those who lose a bit of that structure. So, in order not to rush his transition and introduce copmplications that can arise from a bent left arm, he ends up taking things slow in transition, which leads to the pause.
“I’ve tried to change it,” Young said. “I think in my case [the arm] bends and then by the time I get back out to [the start of the downswing] it’s at full length … as far as bent at the top, there’s a lot of guys, Scottie’s up there like that, Jordan. All kinds of guys have a little bend in the arm up there.”
If Young has shown anything thus far in his Tour career, it’s that even with a unique swing, he’s still among the game’s best.
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