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19th Hole

Jason Day opens up on mental and physical demons

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Jason Day’s career has been on a downward trajectory over the past few years, with the former Would Number 1 now in danger of missing out on multiple majors in 2022.

The Australian is ranked 79th in the world and is only exempt for the 2022 PGA Championship, and ahead of the CJ Cup this week, Day spoke frankly about his struggles.

“I’m a different player than what I was five years ago. I’m a different person. I have different priorities. I can’t work as hard as I used to just because of my body, and I’m OK with that.

I’m not trying to do the exact same thing that got me to No.1 in the world. I know that if I did that, I wouldn’t get there because my body wouldn’t handle it. So I’ve got to somehow be able to kind of learn as I go along and try and adapt as best I can.”

Day’s back has been a source of frustration for the Australian, who has had to pull out of multiple events in the past with injuries. Ahead of the CJ Cup, the Aussie revealed that he’d be playing just one more event (after CJ Cup) before January, meaning a long break from competitive golf was on the cards.

“I’m playing this week and I’m scheduled to play the Shootout, and then the next tournament I’ll play is Farmers Open. So I guess that’s three events in five, six months, something like that.

(I’ll be]) focusing a lot on my mind, focusing a lot on my body. Both are very much important, like both body and mind. Trying to work on myself personally, which is something that we don’t do enough of as professional athletes.

So I feel like things are progressing in what they need to do, but, you know, the level — the play that I’m expecting this week, I’m here just to see how things have progressed swing-wise. What that will, you know, produce result-wise will be interesting to see how it goes this week.”

Day also opened up on the stress that returning to his best form has caused him and how he plans to get back competing at a high level while enjoying himself more.

“I guess obviously we all battle demons, you know what I mean, and especially as golfers. It’s such an individual sport even though we do have, as individuals, we do have teams around us, but you’re out there battling yourself.

Try and discover that golf is not the thing that defines me, you know what I mean? If I play bad golf, as long as I give it everything that I can, then it is what it is, the results are the results. Not to always have golf on my mind is what I’m saying. I just don’t need to have that stress and that anxiety of actually going and performing because everyone else thinks I should be performing the way that they should.

So there’s a lot of expectations not only on the golf course on myself, but also have other people around you and whatnot. I feel like these last two years I’ve grown a lot as kind of an individual because I have stopped battling these things and you learn to go, okay, well, I’m either going to quit the game because I don’t want to feel like this and it’s not motivating and I’m struggling with it, or how do I handle it and tackle it head on and be able do it in a healthy way where for the next 10, 15 years, if I want to, I actually enjoy myself on the golf course while competing at a high level.

I think the biggest thing is do I want to climb that mountain again. I’ve got to take it easy and I’ve got to be smart about it because if I’m not smart about it, then it could be short-lived.”

Gianni is the Managing Editor at GolfWRX. He can be contacted at gianni@golfwrx.com.

19th Hole

‘Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight’ – LPGA pro offers candid take following rough AIG Women’s Open finish

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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.”

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.

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19th Hole

How a late golf ball change helped Cameron Young win for first time on PGA Tour

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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.

Check out Young’s winning WITB here.

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19th Hole

Rickie Fowler makes equipment change to ‘something that’s a little easier on the body’

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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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