19th Hole
How two PGA Tour pros’ initial “Call of Duty” relationship with a gamer came full circle at last week’s Mayakoba Classic
A special (and very modern) relationship between professional golfers and a 22-year-old college student from Mexico connected in video games came full circle last week at the Mayakoba Classic, as the men met in person for the first time.
As PGA Tour’s Cameron Morfit first reported, Harold Varner III and Carlos Ortiz are the two golfers in question, who first started playing the game “Call of Duty” with Arturo earlier this year.
Initially, Varner joined the network game, where gamers play in squads of four, alongside childhood friend and agent Preston Lyon, and Jake Buchanan, a professional baseball player and another friend.
In need of a fourth player, the 22-year-old college student Arturo happened to enter the game. While Varner and Lyon were on the brink of exiting due to Buchanan losing his connection, they happened to stay when they soon realized that Arturo was, well, much better than them at the game.
The men began to play regularly, and Ortiz soon joined in on the fun. With himself and Varner becoming closer to the student (playing and talking for upto five hours a day), they sensed Arturo’s financial difficulties and sent their new friend new gaming equipment as a gift.
Their relationship strengthened after Arturo’s father suffered a heart attack where he then spent five days in intensive care before dying. An error on the death certificate, which had his relationship status listed as single, led to Arturo’s mother being unable to access much-needed pension money.
Needing money, Arturo asked Lyon for permission to sell the gaming equipment he had been sent in order to fund the funeral costs. On hearing the news, Lyon instantly sent $800 to the college student despite having never met in person.
Speaking to the PGA Tour, Lyon said
“It became the thing to do right now; who cares if we’ve never seen him? That’s the way Harold is; it’s easy to do things like this and impact people. That’s how we grew up. It became a little bit bigger than ourselves; bigger than a video game. It circled back to humanity.”
The relationship circled back to the Mayakoba Golf Classic last week, where Varner and Ortiz met Arturo for the first time in person and hugged on the practice green. Arturo then caddied for Varner during Wednesday’s pro-am, and the golfer hosted the student for the rest of the week.
“It’s hard to believe this. Because from one match playing with Harold, I am here. I’m a guy who was playing ‘Call of Duty.’ Now I’m here. I love Harold.” Arturo on meeting Varner.
Varner, Ortiz and Lyon continue to offer support to Arturo, paying his gaming fees and Ortiz working on securing his fellow Mexican a job once he graduates. For Varner, he hopes that giving back will inspire a cycle.
“What’s cool is whenever he makes it, he’s gonna help someone else.”
Check out the sweet moment the three friends met in the embedded video below courtesy of the PGA Tour.
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.
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.
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.
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