19th Hole
‘He’s tried to cancel me for years’ – DECADE Golf creator reveals history of feud with Brad Faxon

Earlier this month, Scott Fawcett, who is the founder of the DECADE Golf system that many professional golfers use, got in a Twitter dispute with Justin Thomas after criticizing the NBC broadcast team of Dan Hicks and Brad Faxon during Will Zalatoris’ win at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
Fawcett, who was Zalatoris’ former mentor, felt that the broadcast had made negative remarks about Zalatoris’ putting stroke which took the attention off of his impressive victory. In response, he went off on an expletive-filled rant on his Twitter account.
After the fallout of the tweet, Zalatoris spoke out condemning Fawcett’s comments.
“Scott Fawcett is not a paid member of my team. I in no way condone or support anything that was said in those tweets. I personally reached out to Dan Hicks and Brad Faxon and echoed that I don’t condone what he said. Any interviews he’s given have been unauthorized.
He has tried to reach out to me and I have not spoken to him. I’m thankful to him for everything he helped me with in the ups and downs in junior golf but those statements are not a reflection of my values or me.”
On Monday night, Fawcett posted a YouTube video that further explains his feud with Brad Faxon and Justin Thomas (read what he says is the reason for his bad blood with Justin Thomas here.)
Fawcett starts the video by acknowledging that the words he used in his tweets were “out of line and offensive”. He also said the reason he made the video was not to “walk back what [he] said” but to “give the color of why I snapped so hard on Faxon”.
According to Fawcett, Faxon has been trying to “cancel [Fawcett] for years”.
The feud dates back to a video from “a couple of years ago” where Faxon says that a tap-in putt didn’t necessarily mean the first putt had “good speed” and he took exception with broadcasters consistently implying that notion.
Faxon said when he hit a good putt that didn’t go in, it would end up “past the hole enough where I had to mark it”. Fawcett was shown the video and said that he disagreed with Faxon’s opinion on what “good speed” meant.
Faxon allegedly replied to Fawcett’s comments by saying “so you think you can tell me how to putt?”
The exchange continued with a back-and-forth on Twitter that lasted a few days and ended with Fawcett bringing up the data proving that only a small percentage (16-23%) of Faxon’s putts ended up more than 31″ past the hole.
Faxon has often said that golfers shouldn’t focus on their statistics, and he has continuously dismissed the notion that players should record stats if they want to improve.
However, citing a tweet of Faxon’s from 2015 where he praised Mark Broadie for his statistical work, Fawcett accused Faxon of lacking “intellectual integrity” and that the tweet “shows he did like stats” and that “he’s only going out of his way to do what he does, simply to dunk on me.”
The feud seemingly has gone on for a few years and there doesn’t appear to be a reconciliation in sight.
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.
19th Hole
How a late golf ball change helped Cameron Young win for first time on PGA Tour

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.
19th Hole
Rickie Fowler makes equipment change to ‘something that’s a little easier on the body’

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.