When Cameron Young won The Players Championship, there was plenty to take away from the performance. He hit it well down the stretch, handled the pressure and closed it out with authority.
But there was one detail from the Sunday broadcast that stuck with me more than anything else.
According to Brad Faxon, Young isn’t reading his own putts anymore. His caddie is doing it for him.
He didn’t just trust his caddie—he simplified the process
Young is very clear about why Kyle Sterbinsky is on the bag.
Sterbinsky isn’t a longtime Tour caddie. He’s a former Wake Forest teammate and one of Young’s closest friends. Young brought him onto the bag in the middle of 2025 during a stretch where things weren’t quite clicking and the partnership has taken off since.
He called him “one of my best friends,” said he’s “great at reading greens,” has “a great mind for golf” and has become “a huge asset.”
This is more than having someone who can get a yardage number or keep your gear in order.
Young eliminated an entire variable from his game and that’s the part that matters.
What he really eliminated
Think about what happens when you stand over a putt.
You’ve already read it. You’ve picked a line. But right before you hit it, something creeps in.
Is this right?
That’s the moment where most golfers lose it. Because now you’re questioning a decision that’s already been made.
That’s the moment Young has taken out of the equation.
The read isn’t being debated over the ball. It’s already been decided and, more importantly, it’s been trusted. There’s no second pass at it. No last-second tweaks. Just a clear decision and now he can execute.
Why this works (and why most golfers don’t do it)
Most golfers are trying to manage everything at once:
The read
The speed
The stroke
The result
That’s too much.
When you’re standing over a putt trying to juggle all of that, something has to give. What Young did was reduce the number of things he had to manage in the moment. That’s where the advantage comes from.
He finished the week seventh in Strokes Gained: Putting at The Players and picked up his second Tour victory.
Does this matter for your game?
Chances are you don’t play with a caddie every round. Very few golfers have that luxury. The good news is you don’t need one to benefit from this strategy.
You just need to trust yourself the way Cameron Young trusts Sterbinsky.
When you read a putt and decide on a line, don’t waver. Stick with it. Commit to it. From that point forward, your only job is to roll the ball.
Do yourself a favor and try to eliminate one variable. If you struggle with reading greens, work on it. Spend time on the putting green learning how putts break.
Hesitation and doubt will never help the ball fall in the hole.
My take
I think Cameron Young’s strategy is brilliant. Yes, Sterbinsky may be great at reading greens, I don’t doubt that. But Young didn’t win because of his caddie’s green-reading ability.
He won because he didn’t have to think about it anymore.
And there’s a lot of power in that.
Top Photo Caption: Young and Sterbinsky read a putt during the 2025 Tour Championship. (GETTY IMAGES/Matthew Maxey)
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