19th Hole
Major champ suggests ‘collaboration on course set-up’ after yet another home Ryder Cup ‘beatdown’

Winning a Ryder Cup on the road has become one of the most difficult tasks in sports. The home team has won the event five consecutive times, and the United States hasn’t won a Ryder Cup on European soil since 1993.
Graeme McDowell, who’s now writing for The Telegraph, believes that the home team dominance is a problem, and one that should be fixed going forward.
“It is now over 10 years since we had a really close Ryder Cup. And over 30 years since the US won in Europe. As much as that fact is something to be proud of, it is also a concern.
“In 2014 at Gleneagles it was a beatdown, 2016 at Hazeltine was a beatdown, 2018 in Paris was a beatdown, 2021 at Whistling Straits was a beatdown. And now Rome. Rory said in his press conference that winning away in the Ryder Cup had now become the biggest test in golf. But is that a good thing?”
At this year’s Ryder Cup, the broadcast team was sure to point out how Luke Donald used analytics for the course setup and made sure to have approach shots coming from the distances that favored the European players. McDowell opines that the evolution of analytics in golf is part of what’s leading to the one-sided Ryder Cup affairs.
“Yes these guys are the best players in the world and should be able to adapt to anything you throw at them,” he wrote. “But with the analytics we now have at our disposal we know exactly where our strengths lie versus our opponents.
“Over the course of a weekend, with thousands of shots hit, the sample size is such that it does make a difference. That is why in Paris we saw such narrow fairways, and green speeds of 10.5-11 max on the Stimpmeter, because that is what we are used to growing up.
“Here again the fairways were cut narrow. We had the drivable par-fours, but otherwise the par-fours were super-long and we tried to keep wedges out of American hands because our stats told us that was what they were better at. The stats were right.”
The Irishman believes having the two teams working together to set up the course could be a way forward.
“Potentially, they could go one step further and collaborate on course set-up right from the start of the two-year process. Set it up together and then say: ‘May the best team win.’ The home team would still have the crowd but that might make it closer?”
McDowell has appeared in four Ryder Cups, and hopes he can be involved in future Ryder Cups, despite joining LIV Golf.
“I hope one day I will be back in some sort of capacity. Anything to represent that shade of blue again.”
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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.