19th Hole
Report: PGA Tour pro says he wants to ‘punch Talor Gooch in the face’

Tensions are high in professional golf.
The LIV Golf players who have elected to leave the PGA TOUR have left many of their former colleagues steaming.
Alan Shipnuck, in his “Firepit Collective“, spoke with Talor Gooch recently. Shipnuck regards Gooch as “the face” of the PGA TOUR Vs. LIV. He also calls Gooch a “god-fearing country boy who is intelligent enough to have been his high school valedictorian”.
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The reason Gooch’s decision to leave the PGA TOUR was so highly scrutinized was because he didn’t fit the mold of the other players who had preceded him.
Prior to Gooch’s departure, the narrative surrounding LIV Golf was that it was a tour for washed up players with their best golf long behind them. Once Gooch decided to leave, the floodgates opened for younger players such as Abraham Ancer, Carlos Ortiz, and eventually the Champion Golfer of the Year Cameron Smith.
Gooch made things even more uncomfortable when he compared the atmosphere at LIV Portland to a Ryder Cup (which he’s never played in). The comments were joked about by plenty of PGA TOUR players and didn’t help the way Gooch was perceived.
Matters got worse when Gooch then decided to tee it up at Wentworth for the DP World Tour’s “flagship” event in search of Official World Golf Ranking Points. This drew criticism from players like Shane Lowry, Matt Fitzpatrick, Jon Rahm and Billy Horschel. All of which had questions as to why Gooch should be able to play the event when he had never supported the DP World Tour throughout his career.
All of these factors have added up to make Gooch the face of all that is wrong with LIV Golf in the eyes of those who oppose the Saudi-backed series.
According to Shipnuck, one anonymous PGA TOUR player recently said,
“He always seemed like a nice guy, but now I just want to punch him in the face.”
Gooch is seemingly unbothered by the criticism thus far, saying to Shipnuck “It was funny. It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.”
After winning the BMW PGA at Wentworth, Shane Lowry exclaimed “another win for the good guys!”
After the Four Aces team victory at LIV Chicago, Gooch shot back.
Talor Gooch throwing shade at Lowry’s comments at Wentworth: “Another one for the good guys.”
This divide isn’t going away any time soon is it.
They need to strike while the iron is hot and get a PGA Tour v LIV match set up asap and get Netflix to film everything! ?? pic.twitter.com/LRjr32LJoV
— Flushing It (@flushingitgolf) September 19, 2022
With Gooch currently involved in a lawsuit against the PGA TOUR, I don’t expect cooler heads to prevail anytime soon.
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.