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LIV pros accuse Brandel Chamblee of lying in fiery social media spat

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Brandel Chamblee has never shied away from broadcasting his feelings on the LIV Golf Series.

Over the last few months, the former PGA Tour player has ripped into all the players that have signed for vast sums of money, most recently at the conclusion of the US Open when declaring, “The right players spoke this week, and the right players put on a show today. Today wasn’t about money, it was about history and Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson, going forward, will always be on the wrong side of history.”

Probably his biggest rant was at the beginning of June when he told Sky Sports that the reason given by players going to LIV – “growing the game” – made him want to puke.

Yesterday, the DP World Tour tweeted a clip of Haotong Li’s celebration after winning the BMW International in Germany, a memorable mix of relief and joy. It prompted one comment of:

“@chambleebrandel you will never see this kind of emotion on LIV Tour…”.

And the floodgates opened.

That led Chamblee to tweet reasons he believed that Charl Schwartzel, winner of the inaugural LIV event, “didn’t win 4.7 million”, claiming the winnings “went against his guarantee”.

Replies questioned the statement, although respected golf writer Bob Harig responded with: “This has been out there and I’ve checked with multiple people about it. Could they all be lying? Certainly. But none of the people I checked with knew the others. All said the prize money is extra in addition to the contracts.”

Former caddy and now ESPN reporter Michael Collins retweeted the post and added some of his own evidence, along with a screenshot of a chat he had with an unnamed LIV employee, categorically stating that “He (Schwartzel) has the money and it’s been transferred to him.”

Whilst Collins and Chamblee are hardly close, there seems there is more of this to come, the former continuing the chat with the cryptic statement, “There’s more coming… I’ve been to Switzerland… been telling people to stop throwing rocks in a glass house… but now some people need to be shown receipts of their hypocrisy.”

Late last night, the winner of the opening LIV event Charl Schwartzel, appeared to clear up the disagreement, claiming that Chamblee’s take was “untrue” and that he did indeed collect the winner’s check for almost $5 million on top of his guarantee.

After Golf journalist Mark Corrigan also claimed that the information Chamblee had was untrue, Lee Westwood took the chance to take a shot at the analyst, but Brandel hit right back while also saying he was happy to recant his opening take if it’s not the case.

Chamblee has since deleted his original tweet.

The second LIV event is due to start in two days’ time at Pumpkin Ridge in Portland, and with continued speculation about who will join Brooks Koepka, Carlos Ortiz and Matt Wolff as newcomers to the tour, this story is a long way from over.

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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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