19th Hole
Tom Lehman reveals 1995 cancer battle
Sam Weinman of Golf Digest took a phone call from Tom Lehman in which the 1996 Champion Golfer of the Year revealed something shocking.
The year prior to hoisting the Claret Jug, a year in which Lehman played 18 events on the PGA Tour and won at Colonial, he was battling colon cancer. Indeed, Colonial was Lehman’s second start after a month-long layoff following surgery to remove cancerous polyps.
All of this was heretofore unbeknownst to pretty much everyone.
“It really didn’t seem to me it was worth discussing,” the five-time PGA Tour winner told Weinman. “I never had to deal with Stage 4 cancer or go through chemo or any of those awful things,” Lehman said. “Mine was early Stage 1 cancer, so why should I make a big deal out of it?”
Certainly, there are those for whom the disease’s ravages are far greater, yes, but still, to say nothing? That speaks to an incredible strength of character: a hard-nosed avoidance of any appearance of looking for sympathy or excuse making, as well as plenty of perspective as to where he disease fit in the pantheon of wretched afflictions.
So, why is Lehman saying something now? Out of a desire to help others, it turns out.
This week’s PGA Tour Champions event is the Cologuard Classic this week. Cologuard is an at-home colon cancer screening product. It was developed by the Mayo Clinic’s Dr. David Ahlquist, Lehman’s doctor during his cancer treatment.
Beyond this: Lehman knows his story is significant for a much broader swath of the male population than we’d usually label as “at risk of colon cancer.” Lehman was only 36 in the spring on 1995 when he was diagnosed, and it was mostly coincidence that revealed the disease.
Leading up to the 1995, Masters, Lehman was dealing with a full plate of the aches and pain that afflict anyone who makes thousands of golf swings year after year. Usually pill avoidant, Lehman popped Advil three days in a row, which led to internal bleeding.
All of this led ultimately to Lehman landing at the Mayo clinic and the malignant polyp discovery. So, again, Lehman’s story is relevant well beyond the gray-haired set. .
“For me the scary part is when you think about the percentages. When they catch the cancer in an early stage, like I had it, the survival rate is 98 percent. When it gets beyond the colon, it goes down to something like 2 percent. What if I didn’t take that Advil that led to the bleeding? At the time I was 36, and I never would have gone to get a colonoscopy. It would have just grown and grown and grown.”
Indeed. Physicals. Annual trips to the dentist. Prostate exams. Colonoscopies. These are all torturous, thoroughly unpleasant things. Yet they are all massively better than finding out you’re terminally ill with something that was treatable if caught sooner.
We don’t want to lose a GolfWRX Member to something that could have been prevented, so listen to Tom Lehman and don’t skimp on the regimen of screenings.
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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