19th Hole
Study shows that Phil Mickelson receives more online abuse than any other golfer

A recent study has revealed Phil Mickelson to be the player suffering most online abuse.
- Related: Dave Portnoy says he’d ‘fire caddie on the spot’ if they said what Rickie Fowler’s did at US Open
Following the removal of a heckler from last week’s US Open, Ace Odds has revealed the list of golfers receiving the most negative comments on social media, and it seems Lefty is polarizing fans online as well as in real life.
Despite the announcement of an alliance between the Saudi PIF, PGA and DP World tours, it seems as if folk are still taking to online outlets to vent their feelings, with many of the seemingly more popular players also coming up against criticism.
The online betting calculator asked Google Bard to analyze tweets from January 2022 to June 2023, the period when the golf world faced the biggest shake-up in years.
With players defecting from the main tours to LIV, rows between players and the various organizations, arguments over the validity of the OWGR and now the new agreement, golf social media has never been more frantic.
Bard gathered data from social listening tool Tweet Binder, the Twitter API and studies conducted by Talkwalker. Using these methods, Bard was able to determine the sentiment behind tweets sent out mentioning 25 golf players who appeared at the 2023 US Open.
The top 10 is headed by Mickelson, who generates 60% negative sentiment in tweets, while Rickie Fowler is the only non-LIV player in the top four, generating 55% negative sentiment alongside Patrick Reed and Bryson DeChambeau.
Recent PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka joins two-time major champion Dustin Johnson on 45%, the same as Jason Day and Tyrrell Hatton.
Interestingly, Hatton appears as the only Englishman in the top 10, with fellow on-course chatterer Jordan Spieth making it seven American players, at 35% ‘negativity’.
Alongside Spieth sits Shane Lowry, who receives around 20% more negativity than Rory McIlroy (15%), the Northern Irishman joining the likes of world number one Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland and Colin Morikawa at the bottom of the 25.
Most surprising is perhaps the placing of 2022 Open Championship winner Cameron Smith, who has been one of the most straight-talking LIV competitors. Despite that honesty, he clearly doesn’t rile fans as much as might be thought. He’s down with the 15-percenters.
The study found that the top six LIV golfers at the US Open suffered an average of 46% negative sentiment, compared with an average of just 25% for the 19 highest-ranked PGA Tour players.
With the revelation, we wonder if the new golf regime will implement a similar tool to the organizers of the recent French Open tennis tournament.
Roland Garros revealed they implemented AI to protect players from social media abuse, with world number six, Coco Gauff, saying:
“I think fans would be surprised by some of the things not just you but your family get.”
We haven’t yet heard of anything similar in golf, but if the study is correct, it may not be too long.
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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

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.