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19th Hole

Rickie Fowler’s U.S. Open qualifying bid agonizingly crushed on final hole…but all may not be lost

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For the second year in succession, Rickie Fowler will likely not be teeing it up at the U.S. Open, which takes place next week at The Country Club in Brookline.

Monday began with Rickie Fowler’s name in the headlines, albeit not for his appearance at the U.S Open qualifying event in Jupiter, Florida.

Early in the day, Golf Channel’s Rich Lerner broke the news that Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler would both be joining the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Series. Sure enough, soon after, Mickelson officially announced his participation in the opening event to take place this week in London.

With the golf world waiting on Fowler’s status, the 33-year-old set about qualifying for the year’s third major, getting off to a disastrous start.

With just four spots up for grabs in Jupiter, Fowler almost played himself out of contention early on, playing the opening four holes in three over par. The Californian then rallied on his back nine with four birdies before carding a double on his last hole to sign for an opening round of 2-over. 

Needing something special in his second round, Fowler gave himself hope, getting to 3-under for his round through 12 holes. A bogey on 13 looked to put pay to his chances before late rallying birdies on 16 and 17 meant that a birdie on his final hole would take him into a playoff against amateur Fred Biondi to determine who would take their spot in next week’s event.

Fowler looked set to complete the fine comeback, with 8 feet for birdie separating himself from the playoff. Unfortunately, what happened next was not in the script, with Fowler lipping out the putt to seemingly end his U.S. Open qualifying hopes.

Ironically, it would be the second major of the year that Rickie has missed out on playing thanks to a lip out after a missed par putt on the 72nd hole at last year’s PGA Championship caught a piece of the hole but refused to drop to cost him a place in this year’s Masters tournament.

Following his final round on Monday, Golf Channel’s Ryan Lavner spoke to Fowler, who rued his opening round but stated that he was encouraged with the way he performed during the final round.

Fowler revealed to Lavner that he was looking forward to taking some time off following an appearance at his sponsor’s Puma HQ on Tuesday and that his stance has still not changed on the “intriguing” LIV Golf option.

In a late twist, however, Fowler arrived back at the course on Tuesday morning in a bid to grab an alternate spot in next week’s field.

With two of the contenders not bothering to turn up, Fowler had a couple of men to beat in Steve Marino and Tom Lewis, and he did just that with a birdie on the fourth extra hole, to take first alternate spot.

Maybe we will still see Rickie at Brookline next week!

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Gianni is the Managing Editor at GolfWRX. He can be contacted at gianni@golfwrx.com.

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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