Cameron Young hits from the 13th tee during the third round of the Travelers Championship on Saturday in Cromwell, Conn. Young shot a 59, becoming the 13th player in PGA Tour history to break 60. Seth Wenig/Associated Press
CROMWELL, Conn. — Cameron Young made a par putt from just inside 10 feet for an 11-under 59 on Saturday in the Travelers Championship, the first sub-60 round on the PGA Tour in nearly four years.
Young made two eagles on par 4s, holing out with a wedge from 142 yards on the third hole and driving the 280-yard 15th hole to within 4 feet.
It was the 13th sub-60 round on the PGA Tour. Scottie Scheffler had the most recent 59 at the TPC Boston in 2020 at The Northern Trust.
“I can’t say I was expecting it,” Young said. “I’ve been playing better than the results have shown. Waking up this morning, I wasn’t really thinking I’m going to be 5 under through four. It was a lot of fun to do.”
This round didn’t even get Young the distinction of owning the course record at TPC River Highlands. In 2016, Jim Furyk shot a 58 – the lowest round in PGA Tour history.
Young and other players Saturday were able to lift, clean and place their golf balls in the short grass because of soggy course conditions and the potential of more rain.
Young, who started the round 11 strokes behind leader Tom Kim, could have gone even lower. After his eagle on the 15th hole, Young hit his tee shot to 7 feet on the par-3 16th but missed the short birdie putt. On the closing hole, needing birdie to tie Furyk’s record, his drive settled on the steep face of a fairway bunker and Young was unable to get it on the green.
He still finished with a par for the seventh round of 59 or lower this year on tours around the world, including a 57 by Cristobal del Solar on the Korn Ferry Tour in Bogota, Colombia.
“To have a day like today where things start going in, and it feels like you’re reward for good shots, it leaves me with a good taste in my mouth,” Young said.
Kim, who didn’t tee off until after Young finished his round, made enough birdies on a soft, vulnerable course to maintain his lead, getting up-and-down for par on the last hole in near darkness for a 5-under 65 and a one-shot advantage over Scheffler and Akshay Bhatia.
Thunderstorms halted play for nearly three hours, and the wind subsided late in the evening as Kim, Scheffler and Xander Schauffele raced to beat darkness.
Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 player coming off a rare pedestrian performance at the U.S. Open, was slowed by a pair of soft bogeys but answered with four straight birdies. His wedge on the 18th rolled back to within an inch of the cup, which he tapped in for 64. Scheffler played with Bhatia, who has two PGA Tour titles in the last 12 months. He poured in a 25-foot birdie putt to match Scheffler with a 64.
Schauffele played bogey-free until the final hole, when his 3-foot par putt lipped around the cup and left him with a 64. He was two shots back at 16 under, along with Sungjae Im, who made a birdie putt from some 40 feet on the final hole.
Young still moved from a tie for 43rd to a tie for 10th, but was still five shots out of the lead.
LPGA: Amy Yang shot a 1-under 71 to take a two-shot lead into the final round of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in Sammamish, Washington, as she chases her first major victory.
Yang was at 7-under 209 at Sahalee Country Club, remaining steady around the greens on the tree-lined course that requires utmost accuracy and precision. The 34-year-old South Korean player has five LPGA Tour victories, the last in November in the Tour Championship.
Lauren Hartlage and Miyu Yamashita were tied for second.
Hartlage shot her second straight 69 for the only bogey-free round of the day. The American is winless in three seasons on the LPGA Tour.
Yamashita, from Japan, had her second 70 in a row. She’s an 11-time winner on the Japanese tour.
Sarah Schmelzel, an American who shared the second-round lead with Yang, shot a 74 to drop to 4 under.
First-round leader Lexi Thompson had a 73 to drop into a tie for fifth at 3 under with Lilia Vu (68), Caroline Inglis (69), Jin Young (73) and Hinako Shibuno (73).
LIV: Tyrrell Hatton shot a bogey-free 7-under 64 in College Grove, Tennessee, for a three-stroke lead going into the final round of the LIV Golf Nashville event.
Hatton, whose lone win on the PGA Tour was at the 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational, joined the Saudi-funded tour in January. His best finish has been a tie for fourth. Starting a stroke behind first-round leader Abraham Ancer, he birdied six of his final seven holes for a 13-under 129 total.
John Catlin (66) was at 10 under in his second LIV Golf event. Two-time U.S. Open champ Bryson DeChambeau (66) and Jon Rahm (63) were tied at 9 under.
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