Cameron Young opened with a bogey-free 8-under 64 on Thursday at Trump International Doral, taking a one-shot lead over Jordan Spieth and Alex Smalley when the PGA Tour returned to the South Florida course for the first time in 10 years.
Young said he felt like he made about 98 feet worth of putts, and the scorecard backed it up. He hit his approach from 154 yards on the par-4 second hole to about an inch, then rolled in three birdie putts from 25 feet or more as he kept the mistakes off his card in the $20 million signature event. By the end of the day, he had a lead that mattered as much for what it said about the course as for the number beside his name.
The layout invited it. Young said he could be aggressive into a lot of the greens because they were not especially firm and the ball was sitting up when needed. That made the opening round more about avoiding the big mistakes, though he added there were a few spots where the rough played longer and water was everywhere. On Thursday, the course rewarded clean contact and confident putting more than brute force.
That mattered because most of the field was seeing Doral as professionals for the first time, even if the name still carried weight from earlier eras. Adam Scott was the most recent PGA Tour winner there before this week, taking the World Golf Championship-Cadillac Championship in 2016, while Justin Rose won at Doral in 2012. The course then hosted LIV Golf events from 2022 through 2025 before the PGA Tour brought a signature event back.
Spieth helped keep the chase alive by chipping in for eagle on the par-5 eighth hole, while Scottie Scheffler was 1 under after the opening round. Nick Taylor shot 66 and sat fourth, two shots off the lead, and Nico Echavarria’s 67 left him three back. Adam Scott, back on a course he once won, opened with a 76. The leaderboard was crowded, but Young was the player who made the day look easiest.
For all the tidy scoring, the tension in this return to Doral is that the Tour is testing a course many players barely know while asking them to produce a signature-event performance on familiar turf with a different recent history. Young handled it better than anyone on day one, and if the putter stays warm, the rest of the field will have to do more than survive the water and the rough to catch him.