GREENSBORO, N.C. – Nico Echavarria had just started his back nine on an unseasonably cool Saturday at Sedgefield Country Club when he glanced at one of the big electronic scoreboards.

The good news? He was 11 under, which at the time put him in second place at the Wyndham Championship. The bad? Cameron Young, who was in the day’s final pairing, two groups behind, was a whopping eight strokes ahead of him.

“That’s not normal,” Echavarria said with a slight shake of his head.

Now, Young wasn’t quite able to maintain the torrid pace he’d set on the front, but he was still in command at the end of the day at 20 under. Echavarria trailed by five while defending champ Aaron Rai, Chris Kirk and Mac Meissner were another shot in arrears, the latter two hoping to crack the FedExCup Playoffs ceiling.

How good has Young’s performance been this week? Well, two of the last four winners of the Wyndham Championship shot 20 under over four rounds, not three. And the other two, including Rai, didn’t even reach that number over 72 holes.

Interestingly, Young – who has seven runner-up finishes, the most of any player without a win since 1983 – has never held a 54-hole lead on the PGA TOUR. Five of those seconds came in a standout 2022 season while the most recent was at the 2024 Valspar Championship.

In each case, Young was the one doing the chasing, like Echavarria and co. will be doing on Sunday. He maintains there is no scar tissue from all those close calls as he seeks to become the 1,000th unique winner on TOUR, as well as the 12th first-timer this year.

“If you had asked me two years ago, I'd probably say yes, but if you go back through, I finished second a bunch, I've gotten beat a lot,” Young explained. “I've played some good golf on Sunday in really all those cases.

“So that's all I'm trying to do tomorrow. I'm starting in a nice spot, so I'm just looking to try to beat second place by as many as I can. That's been my mindset from the first tee on Thursday and that's what I'm going to try to do tomorrow.”

Sedgefield can be a generous course, though, as Brandt Snedeker’s 59 in 2018 will attest. Already this week it yielded a 61 to Joel Dahmen and Young, who has gone to a draw this week, looks to stay aggressive on Sunday, as well.

“Frankly, I'm probably not going to pay much attention to my position tomorrow,” Young said. “I know that there is an 8, a 9, a 10 under out there and I'd like to be the one to shoot it as opposed to someone in second or third place tomorrow.”

Echavarria, who has two wins on TOUR, plans to have a say in that, though. He’s spent the week in conversations with his sports psychologist and worked on his putting with his coach. He’s seen results, too, ranking second in Strokes Gained: Putting, and looks forward to the challenge of playing with Young in the last pairing at 1:55 p.m. local time.

“Because I've been there before and I like being in this position, I like being in the final group,” Echavarria said. “I'm not going to hide tomorrow. Yeah, we play tournaments to win. When I'm in the final group on Sunday, that's why I put so much work into it. “

Young, who held a share of the lead with Meissner and Sungjai Im after the rain-delayed second round was completed Saturday morning, ranks first in Strokes Gained: Putting and second Off the Tee and Tee to Green this week. He did most of his damage in a four-hole stretch Saturday afternoon starting at No. 3, making birdie putts of 8, 33 and 15 feet, as well as a two-putt from 21 at the par-5 fifth.

“I mean, just played some really nice golf there for about an hour,” Young said.

Four more “really nice” hours on Sunday could give Young the first win of his career. And he’s hoping, attract some attention from Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley because he dearly wants to make the team and play at Bethpage Black, one of his favorite courses and not far from his birthplace of Scarborough, New York.

Two years ago, Young ranked ninth in the standings when the team was finalized. Only the top six are automatic and he wasn’t among the captain’s picks. He’s currently 19th and needs a strong stretch run to join the conversation again.

“Obviously I'd love to make it,” Young said. “It hurt pretty bad to miss it a couple years ago. … Set out the year to give our captain no choice, and I don't know if I'm in a position to do that or not, but it would take some really good golf between now and then.

“But if I'm in the question, that's been a big goal of mine and I'd love to put myself there anyway.”

A win at the Wyndham Championship is the first step.