The timing of the Cam Young Players tournament was not very good

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Days (and probably months) before Cameron Young hit the 18th green with a chance to win the Players Championship, new PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp envisioned a perfect finish unlike any in tournament history.

“I’m very happy,” Rolapp told NBC on Saturday. “We’ll throw down the ropes on the 18th when the last team comes out so the fans can experience the competition with the leader, and hopefully there will be a champion. It’s a tradition that I’ve heard many fans want to return to, so we’ll do it this weekend.”

It was only fitting that Rolapp’s dream of winning the limelight was thwarted by Young – a character whose essence repels the limelight like a cockroach from a high light. If Rolapp were to choose the antithesis of a golf star under the Tour’s new high-flying vision of effect, importance and showmanship, Young might be the golfer he paints – a low-key, understated introduction who carries fame cautiously bordering on neurosis.

After all, the golfer who briefly interrupted the press conference on Friday afternoon when he spoke so quietly that the journalists standing in front of him could not answer. You’re a golfer who won’t dare go (or worse, pontificate over) Rolapp’s state-of-the-art porcelain bowler from PGA Tour headquarters on Wednesday. And he’s a golfer who can often be found at TPC Sawgrass in one of the places PGA Tour players don’t like to visit: The big hill to the back side of the course’s massive clubhouse, where he spends time after many rounds chasing his three kids (two boys and a girl) in pursuit of a giant rubber golf ball.

So who better to claim Rolapp’s first title at the tour season’s biggest event than Young? And how better for Young to capture the biggest win of his life than in a penalty shootout, in a tournament he didn’t lead until his tee shot found the bottom of the 72nd hole, and with a reaction that evoked Rory McIlroy’s breathless 18th at Augusta National and more of Rory McIlroy’s before four hours of walking from over the TPC to close the stretch?

“I was really good until I had to make an eight-inch putt on the last hole, and I just fell apart,” Young said with a laugh after it was over. “I couldn’t get my line to point anywhere near the hole, I went for it, which I probably shouldn’t have.

And indeed all is well. Without the pomp and circumstance. Without the great anointing. And not even a little surprise for the NBC broadcast team, who rushed to place his victory on the 18th after spending most of the afternoon preparing to anoint the other two contenders for the tournament, Matthew Fitzpatrick or the 54-hole leader Ludvig Aberg.

Yet everything was strangely perfect. Sunday’s Players Championship was better than most could have imagined when the day started with Aberg as the three-shot leader and an unknown group of chasers – and Young was a better champion than anyone at Tour HQ could have imagined to start the week … and for no other reason.

“I mean, I love my life, I love my family, I love my job,” Young said Sunday, summarizing his appeal to the average golf fan with trademark brevity. “I couldn’t ask for more.”

In the end, Young’s awkwardness in high-scoring moments and his ability to contain his emotions before they ran away from his body did nothing to dampen the excitement or the story on Sunday. As he approaches the famous closing stages of TPC Sawgrass locked in a battle for the biggest victory of his career, that “weakness” may have worked as a strength. With Young in the tournament, it was a Bethpage Ryder Cup hero against one of the Ryder Cup villains. It was America against Europe. It was the noble, quiet good versus the (also noble, tough) wrong.

“The way I look doesn’t change that much, except when I’m really angry,” she said. “I feel like that’s the only thing you’re going to get me out of. I’ll never really smile, I’ll never have a very positive outlook.”

What Young’s words and actions could not say, his golf did. He didn’t need an overreaction to know he was in hell when he followed a bitter caddy conversation with Kyle Sterbinsky on the 16th hole and steamed his way into the trees, leaving a 50-yard shot from the connected lie. He didn’t need an angry fist pump as he waved to the side of the flagstick for the 17th hole, or a lingering celebration after his 10-foot birdie putt landed on the island green, to know he might have just pulled off the shot of his life. He didn’t need a bicep-flex after driving 375 yards on the broom-closet 18th fairway, the longest recorded drive on the hole in the ShotLink era, to know that he might have put together a good shot to take control of the tournament. At every turn, Young’s golf told a story.

“I mean, the atmosphere in the stadium is unbelievable,” he said. “The way everything is lifted, you just know all eyes are on you. So there’s nowhere for me to hide, and I feel like I got up well and hit a lot of good shots on those last few holes, so I’m really proud of that.”

In some cases, the crowd helped the drama, shouting angry chants of “USA” as they turned their volume heavily in his direction. Young stood out with his golf, which showed on Sunday that he belongs to a small peer group at his best.

“I think a lot of people are not good at what they expect of themselves,” said Young. “I’m starting to learn that maybe I should slow down, and like I said, focus on where my feet are.”

In the end, the winning season wasn’t pleasingly good, and Young wasn’t the champion or “golf evangelist” Rolapp would spend his time campaigning on tour to find. But golf isn’t always a game of TV ratings and Meltwater Mentions; it’s often a game of how well you know yourself.

In the Players Championship, Young won as the person he really is – right down to the celebration. It wasn’t the end of Brian Rolapp or the PGA Tour in the picture – but good, it was good.

You can reach the author at james.colgan@golf.com.