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12 players to follow in 2022: (8) Grant Hirschman

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Over the next 12 days, the two presenters on our new ‘Across The Pond’ podcast, Matt Vincenzi and Jason Daniels give their 12 players to follow for 2022 to coincide with the 12 days of Christmas.

None so far have won on their respective tours, so here’s to a long-term watch and investment!

8) Grant Hirschman (Korn Ferry Tour)

This is where it all gets interesting, with unexposed players mixing it with those that have lost their main cards and prospects we may not see the best of for a number of years.

The list of ‘follows’ for the KFT is as long as any for the main tours, but whilst the likes of Mark Anguiano and Vincent Norrman are of huge interest, the one-and-done for this column is the 26-year-old Oklahoma graduate.

It hasn’t quite happened yet for the collegiate star, but not everyone is a Collin Morikawa, and progress is steady, and certainly latest form is enough to think he is ready to make his mark on the second-tier tour.

So far without a victory in a 70-event pro career, Hirschman, who played every college event for four years, can boast five top-10 finishes in that period and, as we know with this damned sport, it takes one piece of fortune to turn those into top-three finishes or better. Indeed, having been forced to arrange a journey into the KFT Q-school, the Oklahoma Sooner Monday-qualified for a place in the Sanderson Farms field in November.

Just a month ago Hirschman told the PGA Tour site that, in the Autumn of 2020, “I decided to chase the speed, and I did, but I don’t know if I went about it 100% the right way because my accuracy went all over the place. I went from a guy that was always in the fairway to hitting it 15 or 20 yards further, but I was always off line and it just wasn’t worth it for me. I was playing out of the rough too much. I wasn’t used to it. Catching a lot more fliers. It was harder to control my ball.”

Changes take time and many tour players speak of the difficulty of seeing results when unable to have long periods of restructuring a swing, putting stroke or whatever, especially when playing and travelling from week-to-week. However, this may well have all paid dividends judged on a final-round 64 and a closing 4th at Panther Creek, and even more so when making that trip to the Sanderson Farms Championship and recording 70-67-66-69 for a top-20 finish and a top-11 ranking for both strokes gained around-the-green and for putting.

Results like these suggest something has clicked, they breed confidence and with a latest 10-under total at the final stages of the KFT Q-school for a lone seventh-place finish, this may be the catalyst for a run at the KFT title.

With 12 guaranteed starts on tour, Hirschman will need to put in a couple of top-10s to get further invites but it looks like he is back in the right frame of mind and playing at the level he is known for.

“I need to believe that I truly belong out there on the PGA Tour and a week like I had out there is a great reminder,” Hirschman said to Nick Parker of pgatour.com. “My caddie, Ryan Boshoven, just kept reminding me the whole week that this is where you need to be each week. He said, ‘Look around, this is where you need to be. You belong. We didn’t do anything great this week, and you finished top 20. This is what you can do every single week.’”

19th Hole

‘Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight’ – LPGA pro offers candid take following rough AIG Women’s Open finish

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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.”

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.

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How a late golf ball change helped Cameron Young win for first time on PGA Tour

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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.

Check out Young’s winning WITB here.

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Rickie Fowler makes equipment change to ‘something that’s a little easier on the body’

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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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