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How Jordan Spieth rewarded fan who saved his week with huge ricochet at the Players

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Without question, Jordan Spieth is one of the most entertaining players on tour, and that hasn’t changed this week at The Players Championship.

Sawgrass has its own unique charm. The difficulty of the course, the infamous par-3 17th and the added bite of the subject of missing LIV players has drawn more attention to this years ‘fifth major’ than usual.

Whatever happens, though, the 29-year-old Texan seems to always grab a headline or two.

A year ago, Spieth attempted and succeeded one of the most intrepid shots of all time, and he was back in the news at the Ponte Vedra coutse this week.

As Spieth made his way down the stretch on Friday, he was at 2over the card, right on the cut-line but with his last hole of the round to come, the par-5 ninth.

As would be, his tee-shot looked to be fading right and into the water before ricocheting off a spectator’s knee and into the fairway. Of course, in typical style, Jordan then made an up-and-down from 272 yards to record an eagle and walk off at level-par, easily making the weekend.

We’ve all seen golfers strike one into the crowd and offer a signed glove as compensation, but Spieth knew that magnitude of the ‘kick-in’.

“Trying to get that guy’s information and see literally whatever he wants this weekend,” he said, “because everything from here on out is because it hit him.”

As it transpired, the lucky fan is Lt. Col. Matt Cutler, an experienced Marine from Colorado Springs, who was then offered tickets to the weekend and a signed flag.

Although Spieth believed that he would have made the cut – it ended up moving to 3-over – he admits, “It’s still two shots that it saved me at least.”

Whilst Hunter Mahan felt the gift should have been of considerably higher value, asking, “IS THAT IT?” Spieth was at pains to point out the fan’s modesty when spotting him in the crowd during the third round.

“He’s over there right now,” Spieth said on Saturday.  “He’s an active Marine. His name is Matt. I spent a little time with him yesterday. He didn’t want anything, but I thought if I could do anything for him I’d try to and the tour stepped in and hooked him up, too. So hopefully he’s having a good weekend. And his knee, I mean, once I found out he was an active Marine, I don’t really think getting hit in the knee really does much to those guys.”

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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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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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