19th Hole
Brandel Chamblee on the equipment adjustment that has Rory McIlroy primed for a huge week at the Masters

With just one day to go until the Masters gets underway, the hype surrounding Rory McIlroy potentially completing the grand slam has reached fever pitch.
McIlroy will begin the event as the second favorite behind Scottie Scheffler, having won twice on the PGA Tour prior to the year’s opening major for the first time in his career.
Ahead of the event, I talked to golf’s leading analyst Brandel Chamblee, who spoke about why Augusta National isn’t a great fit for McIlroy, what his main struggles have been on the course, and how a change to a softer golf ball (McIlroy had been using TaylorMade’s TP5x golf ball, but changed to the brand’s TP5 ball) could make a huge difference for the Irishman this week.
Below is an excerpt from the full Q&A, which you can read in its entirety here.
Gianni: Most of the hype at the Masters this year is surrounding Rory McIlroy, and it feels justified this time. The consensus is that Augusta National is a course that suits his game given that he can bomb it out there with his draw off the tee and he can land his towering irons softly into the greens. But he’s only shot 70 or better here once since 2020. Does Augusta National even suit him?
Brandel: I couldn’t disagree more with the consensus. Augusta National is not a great fit for Rory, and his results bear this out. It was his worst major in 2024, 2023, and 2021, namely because he struggles to hit his irons well enough on the hilly terrain to play his best golf there. Over the course of his career at Augusta, he averages hitting 42.6 greens in regulation, which is under his average on the PGA Tour and almost 10 greens in regulation less per week than the winner’s average.
Gianni: This is the first time Rory has ever headed into the Masters with two wins on the PGA Tour under his belt for the season. It took Sergio Garcia 19 attempts to win his first and only Masters, this year will be McIlroy’s 17th attempt. If not now for Rory, then when?
Brandel: Well, Rory still has plenty of time. Fully one-third of Masters winners have been 35 years of age or older, and Rory is the rarest of “red wine” athletes in that he keeps getting better with age, much in the Roger Federer and Tom Brady vein.
There are quite a few positives working in Rory’s favor heading into this Masters. First, he has never come into a Masters in better form, thanks in large part I believe, because he is using a softer ball which allows him to work the ball easier and necessitates him hitting more partial shots to keep it down and take some speed off, which has the effect of keeping him on top of the ball and helps to mitigate the pulls with short irons. Second, of those obvious players who could challenge prominently, all of them are either off their games to some degree or the course doesn’t fit their games perfectly — with the caveat that we don’t really know the state of LIV player’s games — and finally, he has become a very good wind and poor weather player, so he is ready for whatever mother nature throws at him.
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.