19th Hole
Tiger Woods talks his 2019 Masters victory, Presidents Cup captaincy, and his future schedule on SiriusXM PGA TOUR Radio
On Tuesday, Tiger Woods spoke with SiriusXM’s Brian Katrek and Taylor Zarzour where the 15-time major champion discussed his 2019 Masters victory, how his Presidents Cup captaincy is keeping him up all night, and his playing schedule moving forward.
Speaking on his remarkable win at Augusta National back in April, Woods admitted to his hosts that the victory has finally sunk in, and how his game clicked that week.
*All quotes courtesy of SiriusXM PGA TOUR Radio
“It has (sunk in), That part has, just looking back at how I pulled it off somehow. Just everything came together for one week. I started to hit the ball up in the air, I started drawing it better, my feel was great around the greens, my speed on the greens was good, it was just a matter of getting myself in contention.”
Woods explained how his mind worked heading to the back nine, and how he felt he needed to be aggressive down the final stretch to see off the half a dozen players in contention.
“Then all of a sudden I found myself in contention, and it was weird playing in threesomes on Sunday, going out early, then all of a sudden sparks started flying on 12, and coming in so many guys had a chance. Five or six guys at one point had a share or outright share of the lead on the back nine, so it was a ‘who’s who’ of who’s going to win this thing, and I figured I needed to make four or five birdies on the back nine to have a chance and I was able to do that.”
The 43-year-old also admitted that he soaked the win in more than any other in his career due to his struggles over the few years preceding the victory.
“I did (soak it in), only because I didn’t know if I would ever have this opportunity again. Where I was a few years ago, was not a good place – I was hoping to walk again, to walk without pain. It was a tough period of my life, and I just wanted to be out of that, and I was fortunate to have the operation and give myself a chance to have a normal life.
Then all of a sudden my hands started saying ‘we can do this again’, and I figured out some sort of swing, that’s not what it used to be, it’s worked around what my back can do, and I still have the hands to do it.”
As the subject moved to Presidents Cup duties next week, Woods talked about the communication process in preparation for the event, and how the worldwide destination of both his vice-captains and players has led to little opportunity to sleep.
“I don’t sleep anyway, but there have been some long, long nights. At one point, Woodland just went to DPT in Japan, and I’m getting texts from him at weird hours, Reed was over in Dubai so getting some weird texts at weird hours.
Fred’s (Couples) over on the west coast, and Fred’s staying up late which puts me at about 2,3,4 in the morning texting with Fred, by the time that’s up, it’s time to go to the gym, wake up and start my day and next thing I realize is that it’s been about three days since I slept.”
Despite the lack of sleep, Katrek and Zarzour mentioned the fresh appearance of their guest in contrast to last year, and commenting on his plans for his schedule next year, Woods said it’s going to be a similar limited schedule like we saw in 2019.
“Well, I played too much last year. That was a mistake, and this past year I backed off my schedule, played a little bit less, and I think that’s probably going to be my schedule going forward. I can’t play as much as I used to. There’s no way. And understanding that – and then probably more than anything this year was trying to understand how to prep for the major events that we had each and every month.
With the condensed schedule, tournaments I like to play that I traditionally have played, times I’m usually taking breaks, can’t really take those breaks anymore. So trying to figure all that out and then I had a knee issue, an oblique issue this year, so that has been one of those deals.”
KM on Tap airs weekly on SiriusXM Radio, and the full interview with Woods is available to listen to now on SiriusXM On Demand.
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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