19th Hole
Symetra pro opens up on the harsh financial realities of life on Tour
In the week that hundreds of thousands of dollars will be dished out to the highest-ranked player on many tours, including the LPGA, it is sobering to read the latest interview from Golf Monthly.
Hannah Gregg, a second-year professional and rookie on the developmental Symetra Tour, opened up about the tribulations of those at the lower levels, looking ahead to their futures and yet wondering, quite simply, how they will afford to cope.
“My annual expenses cost on average $50,000, and if you look at the purses on the development tours like the WAPT (Women’s All Pro Tour) – which is the highest paying feeder tour – the average winner walks away with $5-$7,000.” said Hannah.
“Expenses for a cheap tournament are generally $1,500-$2,000, so unless you finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in every single event, you’re not going to make a profit.”
Put simply, “expecting to average top-three for an entire season is not feasible. Even the best players on tour miss cuts and have bad stretches.”
It’s not even a decent living if you do progress. Hannah explains, “…. when you do play well and start winning, you generally start moving up to the next level where travel and accommodation are even more expensive. Suddenly, you need to figure out how to pay a caddie”
The costs are, of course, not limited to the women’s game.
In March 2018, Hannah wrote for GolfWRX examining how much it costs to ‘chase the dream’ of professional golf and whilst nobody should ever deny that the elite players deserve every success, the warning signs are still there many months later.
Explaining in the more recent article how she has to use social media to obtain more sponsorship, Hannah freely discusses the main issues including getting that vital step onto the bigger platforms:
“Lots of girls stop playing because they can’t afford Q-School, which is the most expensive event of the year.” she says. “if you don’t play in that, then you have no Tour status and are left with very few events to play in. You get phased out and others just lap you.”
Last year, I spoke on my podcast to Hannah Holden of National Club Golfer (@HannahHoldenNCG) about the opening up of the women’s game and how attitudes are changing. Slowly, yes, but they are changing, and yet when I caught up with her today she again reiterated what she and many other prospective professionals have experienced.
“It is ridiculously expensive even for amateur golf. I can fork out over £6k to play a pretty small amateur schedule and have my golf lessons, S&C, physio etc… makes it very hard to keep playing if you don’t have anyone supporting you financially.
Even if you make a national team you are getting thousands of pounds of funding a year so people who just miss out on those spots are losing a great deal which is mad considering the last person in a squad and the first person to miss probably have very little splitting them.”
From a player that has been through the junior game and competes in various amateur events nowadays, as well as being involved with equipment manufacturers, this is another voice worth listening to.
“It is a lot more common for boys/men to get people sponsoring them just because the men’s tour game is more visible. Most top female amateur golfers don’t even give professional golf a try because it is so expensive yet so hard to make a living from.
It’s also a deep stem issue because from my experience with England development squads there is a noticeable difference in parents attitudes. Boys parents very much see it as a career and are more ingrained in it. For the girls, they see it as more of a hobby and not a viable career option, so even from a young age girls are disadvantaged in terms of buy in.”
It may be a coincidence that the Golf Monthly interview was published just days after the controversy surrounding the lack of coverage of the important and hugely exciting Pelican Women’s Championship, but I’ll leave it to Hannah Gregg to sum up.
“When it comes to making purses bigger and getting donations from sponsors, everyone has an excuse.
I always hear ‘well the women aren’t fun to watch’ but I’ve never understood that. The men weren’t popular to watch compared to the scale they are now. It takes years of marketing and people engaging with women’s sports for them to have a chance to succeed and grow.
If people really want to help, we should start building up women’s sports and acknowledging that there is a quality product there. Help us raise money when you can, spread the word and find players that you like to watch and then follow their careers.
All of us love knowing that people out there are enjoying our journey and it makes even the struggles that much more enjoyable.”
More from the 19th Hole
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.
‘Why would anybody want to change that swing?’ – Brandel Chamblee says PGA Tour star was wrong to change his swing
‘The stupidest freaking thing I’ve ever heard’ – Billy Horschel slams Open idea suggested by Padraig Harrington
WITB Time Machine: Brandt Snedeker’s winning WITB, 2018 Wyndham Championship
Golfer proudly posts photo of ball mark on iron, receives immediate roasting
WITB Time Machine: Matthew Wolff’s winning WITB, 2019 3M Open
Oakmont Country Club bans Wyndham Clark over locker incident; Reveals specific conditions to earn reinstatement
Adam Scott puts Callaway blades in the bag at Wyndham Championship
Report: LIV star fires caddie and coach in shock shake up
Rickie Fowler makes equipment change to ‘something that’s a little easier on the body’
The championship formula: How 3 key stats separate winners from the field
Peter Malnati WITB 2025 (August)
Peter Malnati what’s in the bag accurate as of the Wyndham Championship. More photos from the event here. Driver: Titleist...
Cameron Young’s winning WITB: 2025 Wyndham Championship
Driver: Titleist GT2 (9 degrees, A1 SureFit setting) Buy here. Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei 1K Pro Orange 70 TX 3-wood: Titleist...
Camilo Villegas WITB 2025 (July)
Camilo Villegas WITB accurate as of the Wyndham Championship. Villegas was undecided on a 3-wood when we shot his bag. ...
WITB Time Machine: Brandt Snedeker’s winning WITB, 2018 Wyndham Championship
Brandt Snedeker fired a final-round 65 at the 2018 Wyndham Championship to outlast Webb Simpson and C.T. Pan. His 5-under...
