19th Hole
LIV pro tells anti-Saudi players that they need to go to Japan to stay true to their word

Martin Kaymer says that players who initially objected to LIV “blood-money” should now move to Japan to avoid being labelled hypocrites.
The two-time Major champion and former world number one told James Corrigan of The Telegraph that the recent, stunning, news of the merger between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF means that those that refused to follow the 38-year-old and fellow major winners Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Cam Smith “need to move to Japan [for the Japan Tour] in order to stay true to their word.”
Following the proposed merger, the 2014 US Open champion proposed the notion that players were in a quandary, but with only one real option – to go along with what will become the new status quo.
“I’m really looking forward now to the reaction of all the people who said, ‘We don’t want to play for blood money, we don’t want to sell our soul.”
Kaymer signed up for LIV in May 2022, a move that he says considered all the negative comments surrounding the Saudi Arabia human rights record.
“I stood up to my values and stood up to the feeling in my heart,” said Kaymer, appearing this week in his 15th consecutive US Open. “I was brave enough and stood up for myself to a lot of people, also here in Germany who criticised me and gave me shit.”
Since Monday’s announcement, though, he says he has plenty of encouraging messages, theorizing that, “It’s such a hypocritical world that we live in, so, it’s even more important to make your own decisions.”
The last time Kaymer played an ‘official’ event was his home BMW International in June 2022, some eight years since his last victory at Pinehurst. Finishing in a tie for 36th place saw him drop to his lowest ever world ranking of 231st, a figure that has not been able to be improved given the OWGR do not award points for LIV tournaments.
Since then, he has taken part in 10 LIV events, recording only a pair of top-20 finishes in the limited fields. The German Ryder Cup hero finished 42nd in the 2022 LIV table with a total of around $1.8 million, only a couple of hundred-thousand off his earnings for beating Rickie Fowler and Erik Compton in his second major all hose years ago.
After taking in four of the seven 2023 events, he languishes in 51st place (of 53 players) with a haul of just under $600k.
Given his fall from the top, perhaps the move to the Saudi-led tour was a gift horse he could not refuse.
Either way, after the tumultuous week that means nobody is quite sure who owns or runs what exactly, Kaymer, who believes LIV players should be permitted at this year’s Ryder Cup, is keen to point out:
“Don’t judge too much because when all is said and done, you might do the same thing.”
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.