Cameron Young had his eyes set on qualifying for the Ryder Cup. The American golfer had an amazing start to his game this week at the Players Championship 2026.

After two rounds of the event, he settled in third place. In the post-round press conference after Friday’s round, Young talked about his “goal” to put him in contention for the Ryder Cup.

“The main thing the first part of the season is just the run-up to Augusta,” Young said. “The goal was to put myself in contention as much as I can so that I can be as comfortable as possible hopefully late on a Sunday late at Augusta.

“But, yeah, we play so many big events between start of the season and there that it really is what I just said; it’s just trying to put myself in contention as much as possible and getting myself comfortable for the start the of the major season,” he added.

Cameron Young was part of the US Ryder Cup in 2025 and is looking forward to playing again in the biennial event. He had also played in the Junior Ryder Cup back in 2014. He also competed at the Presidents Cup back in 2022.

Cameron Young opens up his plans for the weekend at The Players

Cameron Young kick-started his outing at the Players Championship 2026 with an opening round of 68. He then started the game on Friday on the first tee hole.

He carded two birdies and a bogey on the front nine and then added four birdies on the back nine for 5-under 67. In the post-round press conference, Young opened up about his plans heading into the weekend.

“Getting there. Getting there,” Young said. “I feel like we keep building belief in what we do and not just how I’m hitting it on a day-to-day basis, I feel like Kyle and I have done a lot of hard work on just our preparation and our planning and how we approach playing golf out here, and I think continuing to focus on that is really our focus over the next few weeks.”

Before this week, Cameron Young played at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He had a decent time playing on the greens and carded four rounds of 67, 73, 67, and 69 to settle in tied for third place. He was tied for seventh at the Genesis Invitational. Some of his other decent finishes are T22 at the Farmers Insurance Open and T41 at the WM Phoenix Open.

This week’s event featured some big names, and after two rounds, Ludvig Aberg took a two-stroke lead in the game at 12 under. Xander Schauffele settled in solo second place, followed by Cameron Young in third place.