19th Hole
Rory McIlroy says he wants to get himself in the ‘right frame of mind’ ahead of Open Championship
Following his final-round 67 at Oakmont, Rory McIlroy said some version of, “I need to get myself in the right frame of mind” no fewer than four times.
The Ulsterman was only asked eight questions on the heels of his T19 U.S. Open finish, and one of them was, “Was Poppy up this morning?”
With the Open Championship at Royal Portrush (in Northern Ireland, McIlroy’s birthplace) less than a month away, what do we make of this repeated utterance?
Well, let’s consider this question and the response from his brief press conference.
The question: “You know how the game ebbs and flows through your career. Remember 2013 was a year when you had to get something back when you went to new equipment. Now you’ve got a scenario whereby you’ve got Portrush coming up, which is a wonderful target back home. Is that the sort of thing that might just fire the jets?”
McIlroy’s response: “I think so. Look, I climbed my Everest in April, and I think after you do something like that, you’ve got to make your way back down, and you’ve got to look for another mountain to climb. An Open at Portrush is certainly one of those.”
We understood that winning the career Grand Slam was important to Rory McIlroy. So too was — and perhaps more so — getting the Masters monkey off his back and proving, after a 10-year drought, that he could win a major again. Perhaps we didn’t understand quite how much of a crowning achievement he would conceive of the victory being — how much of a moment of standing on the peak of victory and saying, “Well, what now?” we would then witness.
I’m sure it’s the nature of goal setting and high achievement. For some serial achievers, no sooner is one item crossed off of list than the next quest is embarked on. I don’t think most people are like that. Heck, I’m not sure most people set goals — I know it’s not a strong suit of mine. Making a grocery list, actually going grocery shopping, and then actually preparing the meals rather than falling prey to the siren song of DoorDash is my weekly Everest.
Clearly, for Rory, now sitting on five major championships at age 36, he’s likely done the math and realizes catching Tiger Woods (let alone Jack Nicklaus) is extremely improbable. Even granting him a late-40s major, he’d need nine wins in the next 10 years. That seems unlikely. Similarly, he’s unlikely to approach the Tiger Woods/Sam Snead PGA Tour victory mark (82).
So, what to play for then? Win as much as he can? Swim as hard as he can as long as he can before sinking into the black depths of aging, loss of form, and retirement?
I don’t know. Rory is right to say he’ll have his crampons and parka on and will burst forth from base camp at Portrush. We all expect that. I fear, however, after that, well, we might be right here again, having the same conversation in August. I know I’d rather not write the same article twice (see: DoorDash, implications above). So it is that I’d humbly submit the names of Ben Hogan and Gary Player, each owner of nine major championships.
The 10-minus-1 tally is a worthy summit for McIlroy to strive for. He’d sit behind only Nicklaus (18), Woods (15), and Hagen (11) on the all-time list of major winners. It’s a goal for the next decade, for the rest of his career.
With respect to finding “another mountain to climb,” nine majors is ambitious but achievable, and the pursuit ought to keep him locked into “the right frame of mind” in much the same way that I’m locked in to cooking this black bean-stuffed sweet potato for dinner.
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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Kurtis
Jun 17, 2025 at 12:17 pm
Its really easy to not like this douche bag Rors