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Despite some early stress to start his third round, Cameron Young emerged from Moving Day at the 2026 Cadillac Championship unscathed and still in possession of a massive lead.
Young shot a 2-under 70 to maintain his position atop the leaderboard at Trump National Doral by reaching 15 under, extending his lead to six shots over a trio of challengers in second at 9 under, headlined by World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler.
Young's third round got off to a rocky start when he found the water right of the green with his second shot on the par-5 1st, and failed to two-putt from his drop in the fringe to save par. That dropped him back to 12 under, and when he walked off the third green after two more pars, his five-shot lead to start the day had been trimmed to just two by playing partner Nick Taylor.
The difficult par-3 4th was where Young began to turn around his fortunes, finding the green from 220 yards away and then finally getting his speed right on a putt to set up a stress-free par. That seemed to calm him down and allowed him to pick up back-to-back birdies that pushed his lead back out to four shots walking off the 6th, and he never felt any more real pressure from the rest of the chase pack.
After a birdie on the 15th, Young moved to 15 under and found himself six shots ahead facing the challenging closing stretch at the Blue Monster. He navigated the typically difficult closing two holes with relative ease to make a pair of solid pars to close out his round and put himself in prime position to pick up his second big win of the year in the state of Florida -- and third career victory -- on Sunday.
With inclement weather in the forecast for Sunday afternoon, tee times were moved up to the morning in threesomes off split tees for the final round, meaning Young will go off at 9:40 a.m. ET alongside Scheffler -- who he played with on Thursday and Friday -- as well as Si Woo Kim.
Those two will face the daunting task of making up a six-shot deficit on a player who is dominating the golf course, even without taking advantage of the holes you are typically supposed to at Doral. For the week, Young is just 1 under on the par 5s at the Blue Monster, which are supposed to be where players are able to pick up shots before holding on the rest of the way. Young, meanwhile, has torn up the par 4s and par 3s, showing off a masterful ball-striking display and some phenomenal putting to nearly lap the field through 54 holes.
If there were any nerves early on Saturday, Young was able to shake them off early and settled himself back down to go about the task at hand. Scheffler and Kim will look to apply some early pressure to Young at the start of the round by putting some birdies on the card, but the way Young has been playing this week, it's hard to see him giving too many shots back to help them out.
Sunday contenders
T2. Scottie Scheffler, Si Woo Kim, Kristoffer Reitan (-9)
T5. Matt McCarty, Nick Taylor (-8)
T8. Alex Noren, Akshay Bhatia, Alex Smalley (-7)
Scheffler was hoping to make an even stronger charge on Saturday, but his 3-under 69 was enough to get him into the final grouping on Sunday with a shot at running down Young. To get there, Scheffler authored the shot of the day with an absolute dart on the 18th, setting up a short birdie putt to get into the clubhouse at 9 under and assure himself a spot in that final group.
It will be a very comfortable group for Scheffler, who gets to play with his Dallas-based buddy Si Woo Kim, who had a nice round himself with a 69 to also climb four spots on the leaderboard into a share of second. Young will be comfortable with that group as well, as he thrived playing alongside Scheffler early in the week, but things will feel just a bit different alongside Scheffler on a Sunday trying to wrap up a win.
The other player in that tie for second is Kristoffer Reitan, who has impressed in his rookie year on the PGA Tour. He's in position for his third top 10 of the season, and doing so in a Signature event would earn him his largest career payday.
Taylor was in position to really push Young, but a double bogey on the 7th really knocked him off the tracks and despite a solid rebound early on the back nine, he never got himself back in Young's draft to try and reel him in. Everyone trailing Young feels like they'll need help to catch him, but it's hard to see how anyone outside of that trio in second are able to even push Young to a stressful finish.
Updated Cadillac Championship odds, picks
- Cameron Young (1/6)
- Scottie Scheffler (15/2)
- Si Woo Kim (27-1)
- Kristoffer Reitan (40-1)
It'd take a truly disastrous final round for Young not to walk off the 18th green as the champion, but it will be interesting to see what happens late if some weather starts rolling in. If anyone is going to catch him it's Scheffler, but this feels like a statement victory is on its way for Young.
