19th Hole
GolfWRX Members and PGA Tour pros rip JB Holmes for his 4-minute deliberation (and layup)

It’s been three days since J.B. Holmes took more than four minutes to hit his second shot at Torrey Pines’ 18th Hole during the final round of the Farmers Insurance Open, and, oh boy, hot takes aplenty from fellow pros and GolfWRX members.
Holmes needed eagle to tie for the lead at the par-5 18th on Sunday. With 230 yards to the green, J.B. debated whether to aim for the putting surface or lay up. Four-minute long story short, he laid up (in the rough) and didn’t make eagle. Making matters worse, his playing partner, Alex Noren, would have won the tournament with a birdie, but he was effectively iced by Holmes (you could make the argument Noren should have been able to rise above, or merely told Holmes he was going to go ahead and hit).
We’ve heard from Holmes himself, who apologized, but didn’t seem to understand the outrage as he was “trying to win the tournament,” his fellow pros, and talking heads aplenty.
Most tour players aren’t slow but because of a handful of slow ones we all get a bad rep
— Daniel Berger (@DanielBerger59) January 28, 2018
Last group was over a hole behind, we can all blame JB…and yes the player should take responsibility for their pace of play, but if they don’t that’s why we have Tour officials – they needed to step in a while ago IMO.
— Luke Donald (@LukeDonald) January 28, 2018
1. JB needs to be fined or better yet given 2 shots
2 Needs eagle to tie. After all that lays up? Really???
3 Horrendous sportsmanship to Noren and Palmer
4 wow ????— Mark Calcavecchia (@MarkCalc) January 28, 2018
Now, let’s see what the GolfWRX membership has to say about the incident. And J.B., if you’re reading, avert your eyes. The first point to note: There were multiple “J.B. Holmes’ slow play” threads active prior to the incident at the 18th, which were merged into a single thread after “Fourminutetencecondgate.” Anyway, here’s a sampling of the responses from this now 13-page long thread.
Now, to be fair and balanced, the most diplomatic response was one of the first in the thread.
Mjen43 writes
“I don’t care about pace of play on television. They’re not holding me up, I’m just sitting here watching.”
Zz24hours (which is nearly as long as J.B. took) says
“That JB Holmes 2nd to 18 was borderline unsportsmanlike, moronic.”
Straightshot7 says
“They did just take 6 hours to play. That’s a problem. JB needs someone to follow his group with a shot clock and an air horn.”
North Texas looked at the situation from Noren’s perspective
“If I’m Alex Noren, I’m absolutely livid.” He later added, “Not only that, he [J.B.] “chickened out” and didn’t play to get into the playoff.”
Deadsolid…shank pointed out some potential lasting damage
“I’ve always been a JB fan. That just changed.”
Knock it close, ultimately, may have had the best take.
“Until someone other than a 14 year old asian kid [Guan Tianlang at the Masters in 2013] in is made an example of nothing will change. All other rules are enforced by the PGATour, why pace of play isn’t is beyond me.”
If you’re fired up about pace of play on the PGA Tour in general, or the J.B. Holmes ordeal in particular, you’ll want to check out this thread, because the GolfWRX membership has all the angles covered.
19th Hole
‘Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight’ – LPGA pro offers candid take following rough AIG Women’s Open finish

An opening round of 77 left LPGA pro Jenny Shin with a mountain to climb at last week’s AIG Women’s Open.
However, fighting back with rounds of 69 and 67, Shin found herself six shots off the lead and just outside the top 10 heading into Sunday as she went in search of her first major victory.
Shin, who won the US Girls’ Junior at just 13, couldn’t back those rounds up on Sunday, though, and after playing her opening nine holes of the final round in level par, she then bogeyed three holes coming home to slip down the leaderboard and eventually finish T23.
Taking to X following the final round, Shin offered a frustrated and honest take on how she was feeling, posting: “Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. What a crappy way to finish.”
Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. What a crappy way to finish
— Jenny Shin (@JennyShin_LPGA) August 3, 2025
Shin has made 11 cuts in 13 starts on the LPGA Tour this season, but has been plagued by frustrating Sunday finishes throughout the year. Shin ranks 102nd on tour this year out of 155 for Round 4 scoring in 2025.
Miyu Yamashita won the 2025 AIG Women’s Open with a composed final round of 70 to win her first major of her career by two strokes.
19th Hole
How a late golf ball change helped Cameron Young win for first time on PGA Tour

Cameron Young won the Wyndham Championship on Sunday for his first victory on the PGA Tour.
Young dominated all weekend at TPC Sedgefield, running away from the pack to win by six strokes and put himself in contention for a Ryder Cup pick in September.
Ahead of the event, the 28-year-old switched to a Pro V1x prototype golf ball for the first time, following recent testing sessions with the Titleist Golf Ball R&D team.
Interestingly, Young played a practice round accompanied by Fordie Pitts, Titleist’s Director of Tour Research & Validation, at TPC Schedule early last week with both his usual Pro V1 Left Dot ball and the new Pro V1x prototype.
Per Titleist, by the second hole Young was exclusively hitting shots with the Pro V1x prototype.
“We weren’t sure if he was going to test it this week, but as he was warming up, he asked to hit a couple on the range,” Pitts said. “He was then curious to see some shots out on the course. Performance-wise, he was hitting tight draws everywhere. His misses were staying more in play. He hit some, what he would call ‘11 o’clock shots,’ where again he’s taking a little something off it. He had great control there.”
According to Titleist, the main validation came on Tuesday on the seventh hole of his practice round. The par 3 that played between 184 and 225 yards during the tournament called for a 5-iron from Young, or so he thought. Believing there was “no way” he could get a 6-iron to the flag with his Left Dot, Young struck a 5-iron with the Pro V1x prototype and was stunned to see the ball land right by the hole.
“He then hits this 6-iron [with the Pro V1x prototype] absolutely dead at the flag, and it lands right next to the pin, ending up just past it,” Pitts said. “And his response was, ‘remarkable.’ He couldn’t believe that he got that club there.”
Following nine holes on Tuesday and a further nine on Wednesday, Young asked the Titleist team to put the ProV1x balls in his locker. The rest, as they say, is history.
19th Hole
Rickie Fowler makes equipment change to ‘something that’s a little easier on the body’

Rickie Fowler fired an opening round of one-under par on Thursday at the Wyndham Championship, as the Californian looks to make a FedEx Cup playoff push.
Fowler is currently 61st in the standings, so will need a strong couple of weeks to extend his season until the BMW Championship, where only the top 50 in the standings will tee it up.
Heading into the final stretch of the season, Fowler has made an equipment switch of note, changing into new iron shafts, as well as making a switch to his driver shaft.
The 36-year-old revealed this week that he has switched from his usual KBS Tour C-Taper 125-gram steel shafts to the graphite Aerotech SteelFiber 125cw shafts in his Cobra King Tour irons, a change he first put into play at last month’s Travelers Championship.
Speaking on the change to reporters this week, Fowler made note that the graphite shafts offer “something that’s a little easier on the body.”
“I mean, went to the week of Travelers, so been in for, I guess that’s a little over a month now. Something that’s a little easier on the body and seemed to get very similar numbers to where I was at. Yeah, it’s gone well so far.”
Fowler has also made a driver shaft change, switching out his Mitsubishi Diamana WB 73 TX for a UST Mamiya Lin-Q Proto V1 6 TX driver shaft in his Cobra DS-Adapt X, which he first implemented a couple of weeks ago at the John Deere Classic.
However, according to Fowler himself, the testing and potential changes are not done yet.
“Probably do some more testing in some different weight configurations with them once I get some time. Yeah, I feel like we’re always trying to search, one, to get better but are there ways to make things easier, whether that’s physically, mentally, whatever it may be. So yeah, I thought they were good enough to obviously put into play and looking forward to doing some more testing.”
Fowler gets his second round at TPC Sedgefield underway at 7.23 a.m ET on Friday.