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Patrick Reed hits out at ‘insulting’ Rory McIlroy

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After his impressive showing at the BMW PGA Championship where he finished in a share of fifth place, Patrick Reed added his name to the ever-growing list of players who are involved in the war of words surrounding the PGA Tour vs. LIV Golf saga.

Prior to the event, a handful of golfers including Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, and Billy Horschel had some harsh words for the LIV golfers who were in the field at Wentworth.

McIlroy’s comments referenced the fact that LIV golfers only play 54 holes in their events and claimed that they “shouldn’t be” at Wentworth and said that their inclusion in the event would be “hard to stomach.”

“They shouldn’t be here, but again that’s just my opinion. But we are all going to tee it up on the 1st tee [Thursday] and we are all going to go play 72 holes, which is a novelty for them at this point, and then we’ll go from there,” McIlroy said last week.

Billy Horschel, who’s been perhaps one of the most outspoken PGA Tour players in opposition to LIV Golf, didn’t mince words either.

“My stance on this is that when those guys were trying to figure out whether they were going to go to the LIV Tour or stay with PGA Tour, DP World Tour, they had to factor in that they knew that world ranking points were going to maybe not come right away or not come in at all.”

Reed, who is no stranger to controversy, took exception to the dig made by his former Ryder Cup opponent, in a recent interview with The Times.

“I feel like [Rory] making those types of comments is insulting. Let’s be honest, I’ve [played the DP World Tour] more consistently than some of the Europeans on the PGA Tour, so for them to take shots at other guys, especially Billy and Rory taking shots at the LIV guys saying they shouldn’t be here.”

Reed has certainly made an effort to play fairly consistently on the DP World Tour throughout his career.

“I’ve done more for this Tour than Billy has, and I’ve played almost as much as Rory has for the past five years.”

Reed also said he hopes that both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour do “the right thing” and allow them to play on multiple tours in addition to LIV.

“At the end of the day, I hope all the tours work something out and get together. There’s no point in all this going back and forth and people smearing other people because it does nothing for us, does nothing for the brand and does nothing for golf. We need to allow the guys to play, be competitive and do what we do best. That’s play golf and allow us to take care of ourselves.”

“I’ve played on two tours my whole life, my whole career,” he insisted. “I’ve played on the PGA Tour and European Tour at the same time. I don’t see any difference between me playing the PGA Tour and here and playing on LIV and here. LIV only have 14 events next year, which means I’ll be over here more. Guys are like, oh, you joined LIV to play a lesser schedule. Well, I’m a guy that’s played 31 to 34 events a year. So if I played 14 on LIV and I play six here, that’s 20 and 11 to 14 extra weeks I can spend time with my family. As a player, I hope the tours do the right thing and allow us to play but at the end of the day that’s not our decision.”

As it stands, LIV Golf members are not allowed to play on the PGA Tour but can play on the DP World Tour temporarily due to a court injunction.

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‘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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