Q. Are you pleased with your opening round?
CAMERON YOUNG: Yeah. I think it could have been 6-under or like 2-over. I did some good things that didn't really get rewarded, and I also made I feel like a bunch of putts in the middle of the round. So yeah, some good, some bad, but I think mostly really positive.
Q. If you had to grade your year to this point, what would you give yourself and why?
CAMERON YOUNG: I wanted to say like C-, but I think it's better than that. I think kind of like a B. I think I've played some mediocre golf, but I think I've also done some things really well.
If you go back to the stretch after Memorial until John Deere, I made like six of those seven cuts on the number basically, and just about every time I birdied like one or two of the last four holes to do it.
So I think even though I did struggle, I think I did some things that I'm proud of in that stretch.
I think I've improved upon things from last year, it just hasn't shown in some big finishes. I've turned some really good weeks into average finishes, and I've turned some average weeks into worse finishes than they need to be.
Q. Why did you want to say C-?
CAMERON YOUNG: Just because I feel like there's not many tournaments I look back on and think, man, I just played so good that week. I feel like last year there was more of that, but I don't think the golf has been that different. That's why I kind of went back up.
Q. That seems like a pretty big discrepancy for what a round could have been, from 6-under to 2-over. How do you do the math on that?
CAMERON YOUNG: I didn't. I just threw some numbers out there.
I made a good few putts in the middle of the round. I made a few nice up-and-downs that I didn't have to. They were difficult.
I think all it would have taken was for a couple of those to start to go the wrong way, and golf would have started feeling really hard. As it was I kept my momentum and kept myself at a decent score for the day.
Q. What's it like being here and trying to get to East Lake? You've also got the Ryder Cup hanging over you. How do you compartmentalize that stuff?
CAMERON YOUNG: I don't. Honestly I don't think a ton about it. I'm vaguely aware that I have to basically win this week to move on, and I don't have a ton of room to miss that. It's got to be a pretty good finish.
There's no pressure from either of those things. It's all from me. It's just the same things I feel every week, trying to prove to myself that I can do what I want to out here, and just trying to be as good as I can at the game of golf. That's why we show up every week.
There's no pressure from those two things that wouldn't be here in the first place.
Q. A lot of guys get consumed with it. Is that something you've had to teach yourself?
CAMERON YOUNG: No, I think I'm just hard enough on myself that some of the other stuff doesn't matter. I can be somewhat tough on myself, and I think it just makes the other things not matter as much at all. It just comes from me.
Q. You make an interesting point because we're so results oriented, like trying to get in the top 50, trying to get in the top 30, trying to be a top 10 player in the world. It's by the numbers. How do you gauge or judge improvement year over year? You say you're doing some things better now than you did last year.
CAMERON YOUNG: I think it can be hard to in some ways, but I think just as far as -- I think I'm better at being a professional golfer than I was a year ago, as far as the routines we go through in practice, the routines I go through in warmup. I think I'm doing more productive things at tournament weeks and at home golf-wise.
I think I'm understanding my golf more and more, and I think it's really hard to measure those things, but I know they're there even if some of the results don't really speak to that.
Yeah, it's just some very little things here and there.
Q. You mentioned it's rare that you look back and feel like you played as well as you could have in a week. Are there any weeks that come to mind where you did feel that way?
CAMERON YOUNG: Yeah, this year -- it's kind of an obvious one, but the second at the Match Play, I think if that had been a stroke-play event I would have been a lot under par, especially the first four or five rounds, and just happened to run into Sam Burns putting well, which isn't that fun in match play.
But yeah, I was in a lot of control there, and then the Masters, I think I finished seventh a couple weeks later. I didn't feel quite as much in control, but I feel like I fought really hard in that event to stay -- not necessarily with a chance to win, but to have a top 2 or 3 or 4. Didn't quite happen, but I feel like I kept myself there when I could have gone the other way.
After that, not a ton of memorable finishes.
Q. I know you won on KFT in Chicago by five. What do you remember about that?
CAMERON YOUNG: I remember Thursday was really, really cold and rainy. It was like 38 and windy and pouring rain.
I remember I enjoyed -- it was a fun golf course for me, I think. It's still on the schedule. It's one of the more fun ones we play. I just remember the week being a grind. It was one of those that the weather wasn't great, and yeah, I was just playing some really good golf.
Q. You didn't mention Hoylake; what did you take away from there?
CAMERON YOUNG: I think I was a little upset. I just didn't putt well through most of the week. I think it was probably one of the best ball-striking weeks of the year. I think statistically it probably was my best of the year, and I played really well, but I was just kind of out of it with six or eight holes to go I felt like.
Playing that 18th hole, I didn't feel like I was trying to win a golf tournament anymore, I was just trying to get through the day. That's not a feeling I really find that memorable.
Q. You had mentioned in an interview from the John Deere that during the Travelers you tried a different driver for one of the rounds --
CAMERON YOUNG: Yeah, it didn't work. It was a different head. We just tried something, and it was a bad idea.
Q. You put it in one competition day?
CAMERON YOUNG: Yeah.
Q. Do you know which one?
CAMERON YOUNG: It was just the bigger head of the Titleist, I think a TSR2. It didn't work.
Q. Which round was it that you --
CAMERON YOUNG: The first round.
Q. Then from there --
CAMERON YOUNG: Went back to the same one that I've played for a year and a half or two years.
Q. What made you decide to try that switch?
CAMERON YOUNG: It seemed to work on the range, and that just lies quite often.
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