19th Hole
Good? Bad? Meh? 2 takes on the U.S. Ryder Cup team potentially being paid to play
Last week, The Telegraph’s James Corrigan reported that “the organising body of the American team has drawn up proposals that would see its golfers paid directly for the first time in the match’s 97-year history. It is understood that a figure of $400,000 (£315,000) for each player has been put forward and insiders say it is likely to be ratified at board level.”
Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, and Brandel Chamblee have all offered their perspectives on the news. Naturally, the only other opinions on the matter you need are from the hosts of the newly launched Not Another Golf Show.
Gianni’s take
I can see both sides of the argument. I actually don’t think that the players should take any blame here. I know Brandel Chamblee had a bit of a go with them, but I think this completely lies at the feet of the PGA of America, who are price gouging in the extreme. They’re hiking up ticket prices more than double of last the last Ryder Cup — charging people to be volunteers of the event. So they’ve decided they want to capitalize in as the extreme. So why shouldn’t the players be in a position to earn?
If the governing body decides to cash in and the players are the stars of the show…it’s also not unprecedented to be paid to represent your country. So in the last Olympics, the U.S. athletes, who won gold and they got 38,000. Silver 23,000 runs was around 15,000. My issue is this: Considering the criticism of the U.S. side in the past, as always been well, they don’t care as much as the Europeans…so handing them all 400,000 for turning up. I don’t see how that’s a very smart move from the PGA of America. like, if you want, Them to have an incentive. Make them earn. Make them win to be paid. Just handing them the money, and I’m not saying that they’re not going to try as much, but it’s certainly not going to sting as much if they lose and they still say, “Well, we still got paid $400,000.
Ben’s take
I don’t love the idea. I think it would be very detrimental for the Americans to be paid and the Europeans not to. I think that would…feed into the portrait, which again has been painted in earnest and over the past couple of years of professional golfers as profoundly greedy and money-hungry above all else and diminishing the value of competition. And with respect to this specific competition, certainly, a unique element is they’re volunteering for service. I don’t love it…but I’m not surprised by it.
Given the…thinking of…a contingent of players that there’s an opportunity cost to being here, you know, it seems like each week is put under the microscope. And not just from a playing golf sense, right? Not just from a teeing it up in a golf tournament sense but a you know my other business activities. I mean this sort of corporate athlete model seems very in vogue among a significant segment of, at least American athletes, at the moment. Again, I don’t love it. I understand it, but I think it’s particularly a bad look, especially if [only] Americans are being paid.
Check out more of the discussion in the podcast episode below.
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.
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.
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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Jordan
Nov 18, 2024 at 2:13 pm
This is such a stupid discussion topic. The people running the Ryder Cup make millions and could sell the rights to the Ryder cup for billions and why? It’s because it’s “for country” or whatever BS you want to trick people with… it’s a show, a presentation and pure capitalism to the core. They trick people to volunteer for free, pay the entertainers peanuts and the organizers make all the profits. It’s quite genius really.
And how does paying athletes change the product? Professional golfers are absolutely crazy… the amount of work you need to put in to make a Ryder cup is astronomical. It’s not like these guys were blessed being 7 feet tall or something, everyone has to work for it. In order to put in that much work you have to be some of the most competitive SOBs on the planet.