Cameron Young is clutch on the island green and rallies to win The Players Championship

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Cameron Young delivered the biggest birdie of his career on the most notorious hole on the TPC Sawgrass, a sand wedge to 10 feet to tie for the lead in The Players Championship. And then he was even better on a shot equally daunting.

Young finally won a big title to go with his major talent on an electric stage with pressure at every turn. He produced the goods on the final two holes — the birdie on the wind-blown island-green 17th, and a 375-yard drive down the 18th that set up a one-shot victory Sunday.

“It’s so loud on 17. You just know kind of all eyes are right there on you so there’s nowhere to hide,” Young said. “And I feel like I stepped up really well and hit a bunch of good shots those last couple holes, so I’m very proud of that.”

Most impressive was the previous day on the 18th hole, his drive ended with a splash and a double bogey. There was no margin for error this time, tied for the lead with Matt Fitzpatrick. Young picked out his line and had one final thought: “I’m going to hit the best shot of my life right here."

He had never had a thought like that because he had never been in this position before. But he couldn't think of a better shot he ever hit. Moments later, Fitzpatrick failed to save par from the trees when he missed an 8-foot putt.

Young tapped in for par and a 4-under 68.

“The nerves kicked in over the 8-inch putt on the last,” Young said. “That hole looked really, really small there from pretty close range."

It was only his second victory on the PGA Tour. He tied the tour record with seven runner-up finishes before finally winning late last summer in the Wyndham Championship. But this is the PGA Tour's crown jewel, loosely known as the fifth major, on a Stadium Course that taxes brains and more than not breaks hearts.

It was like that for Ludvig Aberg, who had a three-shot lead going into the final round and was still in control until he imploded on the back nine with shots into the water on consecutive holes. He shot 40 on the final nine for a 76 and tied for fifth.

And it felt that way for Fitzpatrick, who thought he nailed his drive on the 18th only to see it run through the fairway and into the pine straw. He pitched out to the front of the green, pitched beautifully to 8 feet and missed the putt to force a playoff. He closed with a 68.

“I felt like I hit a good drive,” Fitzpatrick said. “And once you’re out of position it’s difficult to make your par.”

Young finished at 13-under 275 and earned $4.5 million with a victory that moves him to No. 4 in the world. His objective early in the year was to get into contention as often as possible to prepare for the Masters, and he did better than that.

Fitzpatrick was the first to seize on Aberg's collapse, hitting wedge to tap-in range for birdie on the 12th and a tee shot to 4 feet for birdie on the 13th. Young matched the great tee shot on the 13th for birdie to stay one behind, and it was duel from there.

Young felt that mixture of nerves and confidence, a lesson learned from his Ryder Cup debut last fall at Bethpage Black in his native New York. There were a few chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” as he played with Fitzpatrick of England when it became clear the winner would come from that group.

“That was literally child's play compared to Bethpage,” Fitzpatrick said about the crowd. “If they think that that was anything, then they need to reassess. Get yourself up to New York.”

Fitzpatrick three-putted from 60 feet on the 14th to lose the lead, and he regained it with a 12-foot birdie on the 15th. The closing two holes belonged to Young on a course where he had not finished in the top 50 in four previous tries.

“This place has had my number the last few years,” Young said. "And yeah, it is incredibly taxing. Every shot all day long you can get yourself into trouble. There’s no easy ones. There’s no givens. And you’re going to make mistakes. So it’s a great test of will, a test of patience and obviously a test of hitting some good shots.

“So I feel like I did a lot of those things really well this week.”

Xander Schauffele birdied three of his last four holes, including a 20-foot birdie on the 18th, to close with a 69 and finish third, one shot ahead of Robert MacIntyre (69).

MacIntyre watched a chip from deep rough on the 16th roll across the entire green and into the water. Sepp Straka (71) had two double bogeys on the last five holes, including the 18th when his shot out of the woods bounced off a cormorant sitting on the wood-framed edge.

Aberg, however, was the real shocker.

He was still two shots ahead and in the middle of the fairway on the par-5 11th when he flared one out to the right and into the water, leading to bogey. On his next tee shot, he pulled that badly into the water, hit over the green and took three to get down for double bogey.

That put him three behind, and he never recovered.

“I would have loved to be standing where Cameron is standing right now,” Aberg said. “It definitely stings a little bit.”

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Cameron Young holing the The Players Championship Trophy embraces his son after the final round of The Players Championship golf tournament, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Cameron Young holds the The Players Championship Trophy after the final round of The Players Championship golf tournament, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Ludvig Aberg of Sweden, reacts to his ball hitting the water on the 12th hole during the final round of The Players Championship golf tournament, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Matt Fitzpatrick of England, reacts to his putt on the 16th green during the final round of The Players Championship golf tournament, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Cameron Young holds the The Players Championship Trophy after winning the final round of The Players Championship golf tournament, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

HOUSTON (AP) — Artemis II’s astronauts closed out humanity’s first lunar voyage in more than half a century with a Pacific splashdown on Friday, blazing new records near the moon with grace and joy.

It was a dramatic grand finale to a mission that revealed not only swaths of the lunar far side never seen before by human eyes, but a total solar eclipse and a parade of planets, most notably our own shimmering Earth against the endless black void of space.

With their flight now complete, the four astronauts have set NASA up for a moon landing by another crew in just two years and a full-blown moon base within the decade.

The triumphant moon-farers — commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen — emerged from their bobbing capsule into the sunlight off the coast of San Diego.

In a scene reminiscent of NASA’s Apollo moonshots of yesteryear, military helicopters hoisted the astronauts one by one from an inflatable raft docked to the capsule, hauling them aboard for the short trip to the Navy’s awaiting recovery ship, the USS John P. Murtha.

“These were the ambassadors from humanity to the stars that we sent out there right now, and I can’t imagine a better crew,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said from the recovery ship.

Their Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, made the entire plunge on automatic pilot. The lunar cruiser hit the atmosphere traveling Mach 33 — or 33 times the speed of sound — a blistering blur not seen since the 1960s and 1970s Apollo.

The tension in Mission Control mounted as the capsule became engulfed in red-hot plasma during peak heating and entered a planned communication blackout. All eyes were on the capsule’s life-protecting heat shield that had to withstand thousands of degrees during reentry.

Watching the drama unfold nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) away, hundreds of jubilant workers jammed Mission Control to celebrate the splashdown. Astronauts’ families huddled in a viewing room, where cheers erupted when the capsule emerged from its six-minute blackout and again at splashdown.

The last time NASA and the Defense Department teamed up for a lunar crew’s reentry was Apollo 17 in 1972. Artemis II was projected to come screaming back at 36,170 feet (11,025 meters) per second — or 24,661 mph (39,668 kph) — just shy of the record before slowing to a 19 mph (30 kph) splashdown.

Until Artemis II, NASA’s fresh-from-the-moon homecomings starred only white male pilots. Intent on reflecting changes in society, NASA chose a diverse, multinational crew for its lunar comeback.

Koch became the first woman to fly to the moon, Glover the first Black astronaut and Hansen the first non-U.S. citizen, bursting Canada with pride. They laughed, cried and hugged all the way there and back, striving to take the entire world along with them.

Launched from Florida on April 1, the astronauts racked up one win after another as they deftly navigated NASA’s long-awaited lunar comeback, the first major step in establishing a sustainable moon base.

Artemis II didn't land on the moon or even orbit it. But it broke Apollo 13's distance record and marked the farthest that humans have ever journeyed from Earth when the crew reached 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers). Then in the mission's most heart-tugging scene, the teary astronauts asked permission to name a pair of craters after their moonship and Wiseman's late wife, Carroll.

During Monday's record-breaking flyby, they documented scenes of the moon's far side never seen before by the human eye along with a total solar eclipse. The eclipse, in particular, “just blew all of us away,” Glover said.

Their sense of wonder and love awed everyone, as did their breathtaking pictures of the moon and Earth. The Artemis II crew channeled Apollo 8's first lunar explorers with Earthset, showing our Blue Marble setting behind the gray moon. It was reminiscent of Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968.

“We are back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon, bringing them back safely and to set up for a series more," Isaacman said. "This is just the beginning.”

Isaacman greeted the astronauts with hugs as they headed from the helicopters to ship’s medical bay for routine checks. They walked by themselves, refusing the wheelchairs offered them.

Their moonshot drew global attention as well as star power, earning props from President Donald Trump; Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney; Britain's King Charles III; Ryan Gosling, star of the latest space flick “Project Hail Mary”; Scarlett Johansson of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; and even Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner of TV’s original “Star Trek.”

Despite its rich scientific yield, the nearly 10-day flight was not without technical issues. Both the capsule’s drinking water and propellant systems were hit with valve problems. In perhaps the most high-profile predicament, the toilet kept malfunctioning, but the astronauts shrugged it all off.

“We can’t explore deeper unless we are doing a few things that are inconvenient,” Koch said, “unless we’re making a few sacrifices, unless we’re taking a few risks, and those things are all worth it.”

Added Hansen: “You do a lot of testing on the ground, but your final test is when you get this hardware to space and it’s a doozy.”

Under the revamped Artemis program, next year’s Artemis III will see astronauts practice docking their capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will attempt to land a crew of two near the moon’s south pole in 2028.

The Artemis II astronauts' allegiance was to those future crews, Wiseman said.

“But we really hoped in our soul is that we could for just for a moment have the world pause and remember that this is a beautiful planet and a very special place in our universe, and we should all cherish what we have been gifted,” he said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

People wait for a glimpse of the return of NASA's Artemis II Friday, April 10, 2026, along the beach in Coronado, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

In this photo provided by NASA, the Orion spacecraft with Artemis II crewmembers aboard approaches the surface of the Pacific Ocean for splashdown off the coast of California, Friday, April 10, 2026. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP)

In this photo provided by NASA, the Orion spacecraft with Artemis II crewmembers aboard approaches the surface of the Pacific Ocean for splashdown off the coast of California, Friday, April 10, 2026. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP)

In this image from video provided by NASA, the Artemis II Orion capsule splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, on Friday, April 10, 2026. (NASA via AP)

In this photo provided by NASA, U.S. Navy divers prepare to deploy in small boats from the well deck of USS John P. Murtha to recover Artemis II crew members NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist and NASA's Orion spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, Friday, April 10, 2026. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP)

In this image from video provided by NASA, the Artemis II Orion capsule, right, separates from the service module above the Earth in preparation for splash down in the Pacific Ocean. (NASA via AP)

In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew, counterclockwise from top left, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, and Pilot Victor Glover pose with eclipse viewers during a lunar flyby, Monday, April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)

In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew photographed the Moons curved limb during their journey around the far side of the Moon on April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)

In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew photographed a bright portion of the Moon on April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)

In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew captured this view as the Earth sets behind the Moon during a lunar flyby, Monday, April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)