19th Hole
‘Half the player he used to be’ – Brandel Chamblee puzzled by Spieth’s new swing move
When you ask some of the ‘blue ticks’ a question, there is rarely an answer. When it’s outspoken golf analyst Brandel Chamblee though, you get it straight from the hip.
A week or so ago, the PGA Tour put out a social media post highlighting a change to Jordan Spieth’s pre-shot routine with the question, “Notice any changes to @JordanSpieth’s swing and tempo?”
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Having seen the action once again at this week’s Valero Texas Open, one interested viewer asked:
“@chambleebrandel please explain Jordan Spieth’s practice swing. I’ve been playing golf a long time and can not figure out what swing thought he trying to accomplish, it looks so crazy!”
The responses from many of the followers were not complimentary, but Chamblee took to Twitter and gave fans his brutally honest opinion.
“It’s hard to explain that move, other than by saying that it’s allowed him to dig his way out of a slump, to become roughly half the player he used to be,” wrote the Golf Channel regular.
“If you want to thwart or hobble a genius athlete, all one needs to do is getting them thinking about their action.”
It’s hard to explain that move, other than by saying that it’s allowed him to dig his way out of a slump, to become roughly half the player he used to be.
If you want to thwart or hobble a genius athlete all one needs to do is getting them thinking about their action. https://t.co/b5zbi92ifN
— Brandel Chamblee (@chambleebrandel) March 31, 2022
During Thursday’s first round in San Antonio, Chamblee’s colleague Gary Koch tried to convince his co-analyst of the changes in the defending champion’s action.
“Well, basically, he feels like he has a tendency that the club gets stuck behind him and he comes in too underneath,” said Koch. “So he’s trying to get the club pointed left at the top of his swing and then get the club out in front of him to where he can get the club moving to the left going through and produce that little fade.”
Back in 2020, Chamblee analysed Spieth’s swing changes before telling Golfweek that:
“There’s consequences to these movements. You cannot change the engine pattern. (The video from 2015) is how Jordan plays his best golf. Why would his teacher tell him to change that? Why? He’s either being told to do that or whoever’s watching him doesn’t see that he’s doing that. That would take two seconds to fix. Two seconds. But he’s clearly been told that or somebody’s watching him who is not aware.”
“He didn’t need to change anything. All he needed to do was go to the range and work on shots. Did he have every shot in the bag? I doubt it.“
Indeed, having hit a blank for three years, Chamblee was quick to criticise the search for more distance after a very successful run.
“He was already there. He didn’t have to do anything. Plus, he chipped better and putted better than anybody else.”
Spieth, who won 14 events between 2013 and 2017, including three majors, has won just once since – the 2021 Texas Open – and has already flirted with different putting routines in an attempt to improve his results.
On Sunday, he finished the defence of his title with a five birdie, no bogey round to finish five-under and just outside the top-30.
He now goes to Augusta, having never missed the cut in eight years, looking to add to the green jacket he won in 2015.
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
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