19th Hole
7 tips for amateurs to play better golf, from PGA Tour caddies
PGA Tour caddies have a front row seat every week to watch the best golfers in the world practice and play. If PGA Tour players are the heads chefs, then the caddies are their Sous Chefs; they help players prepare and execute week-in and week-out.
They know the ins and outs of how PGA Tour players approach the game, and they know how the proverbial sauce is made.
Caddies are also known for having especially grounded perspectives on golf and golfers, in general. They’ve seen it all, and they’ve looped for players ranging from complete beginners to the world’s best.
If you want to play better golf, it’s often best to listen to your caddie, and that even applies to PGA Tour players, too.
In recent months, GolfWRX has started a new series called the “Caddie Corner,” where we pepper a different PGA Tour caddie every week with various questions. During each interview, we’ve asked every caddie the same question: “Based on your time on the PGA Tour, what advice would you have for amateur golfers to improve their games.”
Below is a compilation of their answers, thus far.
Reynolds Robinson (caddie for Joseph Bramlett)
Play within your means. Don’t try to hit the hero shot, just focus more on course management than you do on spectacular shots. If I had the swing to go with the knowledge I had now, I’d be a hell of a player. I just don’t have the swing these guys do. The one thing I learn from these guys is that even though they have the shots, they’ve learned how to manage their way around the golf course when it’s not looking good. They won’t take the hero shot. They’ll make the smart play. So for amateurs, play within yourself and don’t make the hero play, just manage the course and you’ll probably save a lot of strokes over the course of a round.
Gerald “G.W.” Cable (Kevin Chappell’s caddie)
Ideally, it’s the time you put in. I feel like, at least a lot of the amateurs I’ve been around, they think it should just happen overnight. And it’s just not the way it is. You just have to be a little gentle on yourself. People expect a lot, and I get it, but it’s just unrealistic. At the end of the day, if you put in the time you’re gonna get better, in my opinion. You see how it is out here, these guys work their butts off, and they still, they’re not the best all time. So it’s like, you gotta give yourself a break. But that’s all. If you put in the time, you’ll get better. There’s no secrets. Put in the work.
Derell Aton (caddie for D.A. Points)
I just think to let loose and be free. I think everybody is too tight, including myself. When you’re more free and not trying as hard in a sense, which is hard to do because we’re perfectionists, but I think you’ll hit better shots.
Kurtis Kowaluk (caddie for Brendon Todd)
I think it’s time spent. You can’t play once a month and be good. That’s exactly it. If you’re going to only have a game every month, or one game every couple weeks, you have to be doing something small so the club isn’t a foreign object in your hand. It’s not easy. These guys are failing all the time. I always am teaching my girlfriend to golf, and we’ve been together 3.5 years. She didn’t know what a birdie was at first, but now she’ll hit two good ones in a row, and then hit one way offline get mad. But I use the term “Embrace the Suck.” Embrace that you suck, and with that I’m saying golf is hard. It’s not going to help getting mad, you just have to put the time into it to make small improvements.
Shannon “Shan” Wallis (Jonas Blixt’s caddie)
Don’t be like a professional golfer. You know, you’re not going to be like ‘em. Yeah, just don’t be like a professional golfer. If you’re playing off a 27 (handicap), you’re shit at golf. Just play and have fun, have a few beers.
Shay Knight (Viktor Hovland’s caddie)
That’s a really good question. It’s so difficult because there’s so many players out there who are trying to make a name for themselves and have this opportunity in life to play on the PGA Tour. You have to work your butt off, both on the course and off the course. Just be patient with it. There’s so many times I see so many golfers, they push the buttons in terms of trying to hit the perfect shot every single time. Golf’s not a game of perfect. These players, they hit bad shots, but the thing they do really well is they get out of that situation very quickly, and they put themselves in the right position to get back to score. Whether they’ve made a bogey, or whether they’ve made a few, they don’t panic. They just go out and continue doing what they’re doing, and continue playing golf and staying patient.
Zak Smith (caddie for Martin Trainer)
Practice your short game. I know it’s probably been beat in your head a lot, but it’s crazy how many times these pros get up and down from places where most amateurs would make double bogey, and the pros make par. That’s the big thing.
To read more from the caddies, check out GolfWRX’s “Caddie Corner.”
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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