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Tour pro suffers snapped driver in freak accident

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At the Korn Ferry Tour’s LECOM Suncoast Classic this past weekend, Albin Choi found himself in a very strange turn of events. It resulted in a snapped driver, which wasn’t even the club that Choi was using. I’ll let the 28-year-old tell the story:

“Yeah, so I was left on 6,” Choi explained, “and I was kind of against a shrub and couldn’t really get a club on it — it was kind of a weird shot, and I hit it and then unfortunately it hit the shrub right in front of me, and it bounced backwards and was actually going toward my caddie. He tried to move the bag, it hit the bag, but he dropped it because it all happened so fast, and he dropped it.

“And the driver was kind of sticking out, and it just snapped right in half and so yeah.”

Amazingly, Choi managed to escape the par-5 6th with a five on the scorecard.

“I’ve never broke a driver ever or a wood or anything like that so just looking over and seeing the head of it just kind of dangling off, I just kind of, I was looking at the ball, I was looking at the club and then looked at my caddie, and we were all just in shock, and we just had to call a rules official right away,” Albin Choi said.

There were a few potential rule infractions that came into play.

The first was the accidental deflection off of the caddie, which is covered in rule 11.1a, which states: “If a player’s ball in motion accidentally hits any person or outside influence: There is no penalty to any player. This is true even if the ball hits the player, the opponent or any other player or any of their caddies or equipment.”

So, it turned out that Choi was able to escape the situation without a penalty.

But what about the driver?

According to rule Model Local Rule G-9,“If a player’s club is “broken or significantly damaged” during the round by the player or caddie, except in cases of abuse, the player may replace the club with any club under Rule 4.1b(4).”

The fact that Choi accidentally broke the club allowed him to replace it during the round. The new driver was assembled on the 7th green and was ready for Choi to use on the 8th tee.

“Yeah, I was getting ready to hit a 3-wood off 8, and I was just trying to think in my mind, I didn’t bring an extra driver, and to try and play this golf course without a driver would be very difficult so I’m just glad I got something, and it worked out half-decent,” Choi said.

Albin’s career was kickstarted in 2020 when PGA Tour player Sungjae Im asked him to carry his bag for the Honda Classic. Im went on to win his first PGA title and Choi received 10% of Im’s $1.26 million paycheck. The funds from the tournament allowed him to pursue his career in professional golf. Albin also had NGA tour events in 2015 that amounted to $40k total to jumpstart his playing career.

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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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19th Hole

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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19th Hole

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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