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Former LPGA pro shares detailed breakdown of expenses for a year on Symetra Tour

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Earlier this week, professional golfer Hannah Gregg opened up on the harsh financial demands of a player on the Symetra Tour.

Gregg, a second-year professional and rookie on the developmental Symetra Tour, spoke to Golf Monthly about the difficulty of making ends meet even for the best players on feeder tours, with their future in the game constantly up in the air.

Included in Gregg’s takeaways was that her annual expenses cost on average $50k and that the WAPT (Women’s All Pro Tour) is the highest paying development tour, with the average winner of high-paying events earning $5-7k for a victory. With expenses for a cheap tournament generally coming in at $1.5-2k, players need to average finishing in the top-3 of each event to make a profit.

As Gregg points out in the interview: “expecting to average top-three for an entire season is not feasible. Even the best players on tour miss cuts and have bad stretches.” and that progression leads to more expenses, “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.”

Former LPGA professional Anya Alvarez has since praised Gregg for speaking up on the topic and subsequently produced a very interesting breakdown of her expenses for a year of playing on the Symetra Tour.

It’s worth noting that the figures are from almost 9 years ago, and as she wrote on Twitter to accompany the breakdown, Alvarez said, “I drove to 90% of events, stayed with host families, and often didn’t have a caddie. LPGA expenses were much more.” 

It’s also worth noting that per SymetraTour.com, the highest earner on the Symetra Tour in 2013 earned $47,283 in prize money.

@anya__alvarez

Going back to Gregg’s recent interview, the Symetra pro revealed that the harsh financial demands end up making it unattainable for many talented players to continue in the sport:

“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.”

In another eye-opening tweet from Alvarez, who is the founder of MajorLeagueGirls.com, a website that promotes women’s sports, she stated that “players who are talented beyond measure and had some success were forced to quit playing because they financially couldn’t do it anymore”, resulting in “the talent on tour being diluted.”

How can things change? In Gregg’s original interview, she shared her opinion that it begins with building up women’s sports and acknowledging that there is a quality product there – something that anyone who watches the LPGA will undoubtedly attest to.

Gregg told Golf Monthly:

“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.”

Plenty of food for thought.

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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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