NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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Cameron Young’s long-awaited maiden PGA Tour victory was four years in the making, but it came immediately after the 28-year-old made the switch to a new Titleist Pro V1x prototype golf ball ahead of the final full-field event of the season.
Young’s abrupt switch in the FedEx Cup stretch run was not as abrupt as it seems. Young visited the Titleist Performance Center in Massachusetts for some extensive range testing with Titleist’s tour consultant for golf ball performance, Fordie Pitts. That testing continued on site at Sedgefield Country Club ahead of the Wyndham Championship. After a practice round when Young noticed the Pro V1x prototype was carrying one club farther than the Pro V1 Left Dot he’d been gaming, he asked to put the new ball in play.
“It’s just been something we’ve worked on over the last nine, 10 months,” Young said of his decision to change balls. “It’s very, very similar to what I was playing before, it’s just a tiny bit different. … I think it definitely contributed to some of the good play this week, so I’m excited about the next few weeks.
“I’ve always been a super high spin person, so it’s really just trying to manage that. And given I hit it pretty hard, so if I hit it hard and hit down on it a lot that just generates spin, so it’s just trying to manage that.”
Pitts explained it this way to GolfWRX: “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.”
Young dominated at the Wyndham, leading the field in total strokes gained and putting while ranking second in driving distance and strokes gained off the tee en route to a commanding six-stroke victory.
In May ahead of the Truist Championship, Young switched his swing grips to Golf Pride’s MCC Align Max, according to Golf Pride’s tour rep Brett Zollman. His small changes added up to a big breakthrough.
After not qualifying for the FedEx Cup playoffs for the third time in four years last season, Rickie Fowler played his way into the back end of the 70-player field at last week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship.
Fowler, 36, is not getting any younger, and a concession to aging may have sparked some renewed vigor in his game. Ahead of the Wyndham Championship, Fowler said his switch back to graphite shafts in June helped improve his consistency over the last couple of months as he made his playoff push to move inside the top 70.
“Went to [them] the week of Travelers,” Fowler said of his switch from KBS Tour C-Taper 125-gram steel shafts to the graphite Aerotech SteelFiber 125cw shafts in his Cobra King Tour irons. “Something that’s a little easier on the body and seemed like got very similar numbers to where I was at. Yeah, it’s gone well so far.”
The composite graphite touts vibration dampening, softer feel and better control than steel, and ease of transitioning energy on the downswing to pick up ball speed. Fowler’s results speak for themselves – since making the switch his proximity to the hole has improved from 85th to 72nd on tour and his greens-in-regulation rank has climbed 10 spots to 111th.
“In a way I feel like there’s been a lot of rounds where things aren’t too bad, maybe not scoring great or not making as many putts as I’d like,” he said. “Fine line between a putt going in versus not and where that may take the round. … Everything’s been going the right direction. Still trying to just stay patient and make sure you don’t try and press or change anything. It’s in a very good spot. Yeah, I definitely believe there’s some good golf coming up and it wouldn’t be a bad thing if it happened to be in the next few weeks.”
Before the John Deere Classic, Fowler made another shaft switch with his Cobra DS-Adapt X driver, installing a UST Mamiya Lin-Q Proto V1 6 TX driver shaft that Ben Griffin uses in place of his Mitsubishi Diamana WB 73 TX. As with the irons, his driving stats also ticked upward since the switch, moving inside the top 50 from 65th in strokes gained off the tee.
However long Fowler’s season extends (he finished T6 in the FedEx St. Jude Championship to climb from 64th to 48th and advance to the BMW Championship) when the offseason comes he plans to keep tinkering with the shaft setup as the six-time PGA Tour winner gets ready to compete in 2026 as a 37-year-old.
“Probably do some more testing in some different weight configurations with them once I get some time,” Fowler said. “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.”
Adam Scott failed to reach the playoffs for just the second time in his career, and the 45-year-old Australian’s last-ditch effort at the Wyndham Championship was accompanied by a sharp and shiny new set of Callaway Apex Forged blades in the bag instead of the Miura and Titleist irons he’s been playing.
Scott Michaux