Cameron Young defended his Ike title in a thrilling come-from-behind win at Essex County Country Club in New Jersey last week. The 2015 Metropolitan Golf Association (MGA) Player of the Year made up an eight-stroke deficit from his opening round, then slipped past Peter Kim, the reigning Met Amateur champion, in a sudden death playoff following 36 holes of medal play in the tournament’s 61st annual installment.
Peter Kim, a senior at West Point who plays out of Royce Brook Golf Club in Hillsborough, NJ, set both a course and Ike Championship scoring record with a stunning 63 in his opening round. He made a clutch birdie on the 18th hole of the final of three rounds to force a three-hole aggregate playoff with Young. “Peter is so hard to play against,” Young remarked. “But I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and it worked out.”
In the playoff, Young stuffed a pitch shot to a foot from the pin on the last of the three holes to force the aggregate-score match into sudden death. Young lagged a 40-foot putt close to the cup on the first sudden death hole for a par, which was enough to top Kim, who had found the bunker with his approach.
Last year, at 18, Young became the youngest winner of the Ike trophy with a runaway five-stroke lead over his nearest competitor. He is now a four-time MGA champion, with two Ikes, a Met Junior, and the Carter Cup to his credit. Young’s father, Sleepy Hollow Country Club head pro David Young, caddied for him during the tournament, a spot usually held by his mother, Barbara.
