19th Hole
‘Golf is a strange sport’ – Dustin Johnson says game hasn’t slipped ahead of U.S. Open

Dustin Johnson conceded, in his pre-U.S. Open press conference, that Oakmont is the hardest course he’s ever played. OK. Nothing shocking in that. However, the 2016 Open winner at the vaunted western Pennsylvania track later conceded something surprising, given his recent performances in major championships: He feels he’s not far off from his best form.
That form that won him the U.S. Open trophy nearly a decade ago. Johnson summarized his 4-under 2016 Oakmont effort in his characteristically succinct style, “I drove it really straight. I hit a lot of fairways,” later adding, “I hit a lot of good drives and a lot of good iron shots.”
Asked about the state of his game following a 9-under, T10 finish at LIV Golf Virginia last week, Johnson said:
“I feel like my game’s been really close. I haven’t really got a lot out of it. So it was definitely nice to have a nice finish last week. I played good every day. I didn’t — you know, still kind of giving away some shots. I need to clean that up a little bit. But played really solid every day, hit it nice, gave myself a lot of opportunities. Just still kind of gave some shots away each round that you can’t afford to do at a golf course like this.”
The two-time major champion indicated he’s seeing improvement in his play ahead of the year’s third major, saying his PGA Championship performance, where he fired rounds of 78, 76 to miss the cut, was not indicative of the state of his game.
“It was nice to finally see the game progress a little bit,” Johnson said. “I know my score didn’t reflect it at the PGA, but I actually played way better than the score. I just struggled a little bit on the greens. Well, maybe that’s an understatement. I struggled really bad on the greens.”
Johnson said he had a few mistakes “you shouldn’t make” to clean up and added, “The game is definitely in a lot better shape than it was a few months ago.”
Most interestingly, however, responding to a reporter asking whether his game “slipped at all” in the past couple of years, Johnson said he felt it hadn’t.
His full quote:
“Golf is a strange sport. I don’t feel like I’ve slipped any. My scores haven’t reflected, but it is a really fine line.”
“I remember a few years ago, I missed two cuts in a row. I think I shot 80-80, and then I won the next week. For me it’s always really close to being good, but just getting back there and keeping it consistent which over the last couple months I’m starting to see a lot of patterns and the game feels like it’s coming back into good form.”
As mentioned, Johnson missed the cut by 10 strokes at the PGA Championship. His major performances since 2023 include just one top-10 finish (his only top 20) and five missed cuts, including in three of the past four majors.
That said, all practitioners of our frustrating game would surely agree, as DJ asserts, that golf is a strange sport. It will be interesting to see, following these pre-tournament sentiments, how he fares at Oakmont this time around.
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.
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