PGA Championship: Young gets two-shot penalty for playing from wrong spot

Young, last year’s British Open runner-up, made a ball-marking blunder on the 16th green at Oak Hill playing alongside Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama and England’s Tommy Fleetwood.

USA’s Cameron Young during the second round of the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club on Friday in Rochester, New York. | Photo Credit: Getty Images via AFP

World number 15 Cameron Young was given a two-stroke penalty in Friday’s second round of the PGA Championship after making a tap-in putt from an incorrect spot.

The 26-year-old American, last year’s British Open runner-up, made a ball-marking blunder on the 16th green at Oak Hill playing alongside Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama and England’s Tommy Fleetwood.

Young, the 2022 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, finished second at the WGC Match Play in March, his sixth career runner-up finish in a quest of a first PGA title.

Young, who began on the back nine, left a birdie putt from just inside 60 feet two feet shy of the hole and marked his ball.

But because the ball marker was in the line of play of both of his playing partners, Young moved the marker one clubhead length to the side.

Once Matsuyama and Fleetwood were done, Young didn’t move the marker back to the original position.

When Young replaced his ball and tapped in, he played it from an incorrect spot, thus incurring a two-stroke penalty and taking a double bogey six rather than a par on the hole, the PGA Championship rules committee said in a statement.