Andy’s Golf Lab Weekly

Clark survives Rory’s charge, Jamieson ends a 14-year wait, Yamashita dominates in Canada and La Sasso breaks through

There was a common theme running through professional golf this weekend: holding your nerve when the tournament suddenly changes.

At Bellerive, Wyndham Clark saw a substantial advantage disappear as Rory McIlroy came after him, yet responded when he absolutely had to. In Scotland, Scott Jamieson ended a wait of almost 14 years for another DP World Tour victory. At LIV Golf’s unexpectedly early season finale, 22-year-old rookie Michael La Sasso produced one of the stories of the season.

And in Canada, Miyu Yamashita didn’t simply protect a six-shot overnight lead — she turned it into a nine-shot victory and matched an LPGA Tour scoring record.

Let’s get into it.

PGA Tour — Clark bends, but doesn’t break

The BMW Championship at Bellerive became much more dramatic than Wyndham Clark would have wanted.

Clark took a five-shot advantage into the business end of Sunday, only to see that cushion disappear as McIlroy and Patrick Cantlay applied the pressure.

This is where tournament golf becomes fascinating.

It is one thing to build a lead. It is quite another to watch it disappear and then somehow reset.

Clark did exactly that.

He birdied his final three holes, closed with an even-par 70 and eventually won by three shots. It was his third PGA Tour victory of 2026.

That finish tells you considerably more about the victory than simply looking at the winning total.

The momentum had shifted. The crowd could feel it. Rory could feel it. Clark certainly knew it.

And instead of protecting what remained, he started making birdies.

That is a really interesting psychological switch.

Rory finds something at exactly the right time

There is another important story here.

Only a week ago McIlroy was talking about feeling a long way from his best golf.

Now he heads to East Lake having genuinely challenged for the BMW Championship.

Professional golf can change very quickly.

That is why I am always wary when we start making sweeping conclusions about a player’s game from a handful of rounds.

Rory didn’t suddenly forget how to play golf in Memphis. And he hasn’t suddenly discovered an entirely new swing in St Louis.

Form is fluid.

The important thing is recognising what is beginning to work and allowing confidence to build around it.

Scheffler — even the world No.1 is human

There was also an unusual subplot involving Scottie Scheffler.

After destroying the field by eight shots in Memphis, Scheffler arrived at Bellerive dealing with hand, foot and mouth disease.

Not exactly ideal preparation for a FedExCup Playoff event.

He still competed.

That alone probably tells you quite a lot about elite golfers.

Now the top 30 move on to East Lake.

And that is where the entire season is decided.

But does the FedExCup still capture the imagination?

That brings me to a question I keep coming back to as we head towards the Tour Championship.

How interested are golf supporters actually going to be in the FedExCup finale?

The four men’s majors are finished. There is no Ryder Cup this year. For many golf followers, particularly those of us watching from this side of the Atlantic, the natural high points of the season have already passed.

Of course, East Lake will contain an outstanding field. The top 30 have earned their places and there is genuine sporting pressure attached to winning the season finale. The PGA Tour has also simplified the Tour Championship: everyone now starts level and the lowest score over 72 holes wins, which is considerably easier for a viewer to understand than the old staggered starting-strokes system.

But I still wonder what the championship is really asking the viewer to care about.

The Tour Championship carries a $40 million purse, with $10 million to the winner. The wider FedExCup structure distributes enormous bonuses as well.

And that leads to the uncomfortable question: when the principal narrative becomes the amount of money being won, does that actually make the golf more interesting to watch?

I’m not convinced it does.

Players should absolutely be rewarded for an outstanding season. Nobody can seriously argue against that. But spectators don't generally fall in love with sport because of somebody else's bank balance.

The Masters matters because somebody wins a Green Jacket.

The Open matters because somebody lifts the Claret Jug.

The Ryder Cup matters because of history, rivalry, national and continental identity, pressure and the rarity of the event.

Those competitions have an emotional currency that exists independently of the prize money.

Does the FedExCup have that yet?

Interestingly, even Matt Fitzpatrick questioned this week whether golf really needs a playoff system at all, arguing that season-long excellence might be a more natural way of determining a champion than importing the playoff concept from American team sports.

I can see both sides. The progressive cut from 70 players, to 50, to 30 certainly creates jeopardy. We saw that at the BMW Championship. Careers, schedules and entry into next season's biggest events can turn on a handful of shots.

But once we reach East Lake, I’m interested to see whether the wider golfing public feels that same jeopardy — or whether, with the majors behind us, the Tour Championship feels more like an extremely lucrative conclusion to the PGA Tour’s business year.

Perhaps that is the real challenge for the FedExCup.

It doesn't need to become worth more money.

It needs to become worth more emotionally.

I’d be genuinely interested to know what other golfers think. Will you make a point of watching the Tour Championship this weekend in the same way you would a major or Ryder Cup? Or has your attention already started moving elsewhere?

LPGA — Yamashita produces a record-equalling masterclass in Canada

Miyu Yamashita arrived at the final round of the CPKC Women’s Open with a six-shot lead. By the time she walked off the 18th green at Royal Mayfair Golf Club in Edmonton, that advantage had become nine shots.

The 25-year-old Japanese star closed with a four-under-par 66 to finish at 23-under-par, 257, completing a wire-to-wire victory and matching the LPGA Tour’s 72-hole record for the lowest gross score.

Yuri Yoshida finished second at 14-under after a closing 69, with Sei Young Kim third at 13-under. Gina Kim, Ruoning Yin and Canadian teenager Anna Huang shared fourth at 12-under.

What makes Yamashita’s week particularly impressive is that this wasn’t a player hanging on to an early lead.

She opened with a course-record 62, followed it with 64 and 65, and then still produced 66 on Sunday when everybody was waiting to see whether the pressure of a large lead might change the way she played.

It didn’t.

She made six birdies in the final round, including one at the 18th, and finished the job emphatically.

This was Yamashita’s fourth LPGA Tour victory in just 13 months and her second win of 2026, following the Meijer LPGA Classic. Her breakthrough at this level came with a major championship too — the 2025 AIG Women’s Open.

There’s a lovely contradiction in Yamashita’s game.

At 4ft 11in she is one of the smallest players in elite professional golf, yet she continues to demonstrate why physical size alone tells us very little about somebody’s ability to play this game.

Technically she is extremely efficient, but what stood out this week was the scoring. When she got herself into position, she converted. When the tournament was hers to lose, she continued to attack rather than simply trying to protect the lead.

Winning by nine at this level is exceptional. Doing it while equalling an LPGA scoring record makes this one of the standout performances of the 2026 season.

Canada’s teenagers make their mark

There was another story from Edmonton that I particularly enjoyed.

Four Canadian players aged 18 or younger made the cut — a tournament first.

Seventeen-year-old Anna Huang eventually finished tied fourth at 12-under, while 16-year-old amateur Aphrodite Deng tied seventh at 11-under after producing a bogey-free 63 on Saturday.

Alongside Michelle Xing and Clairey Lin, it provided another glimpse of the extraordinary young talent emerging in women’s golf.

For those of us involved in junior development, that is worth watching closely. These players aren’t simply appearing in professional fields for experience; some of them are already capable of competing towards the top of leaderboards.

DP World Tour — fourteen years later...

This might be my favourite story of the week.

Scott Jamieson won his first DP World Tour tournament in 2012.

His second arrived on Sunday.

Nearly 14 years later.

The 42-year-old Scot closed with a 67 at the Nexo Championship at Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeenshire, reaching 11-under and defeating Matthew Jordan by two shots.

Andy Sullivan finished third.

Think about the career between those two victories.

Seasons when the golf was good. Seasons when it wasn’t. Near misses. Cuts. Flights. Hotels. Range sessions. Questions about whether another win would ever arrive.

And then it does.

We’ve had a few stories like this recently and I think they are enormously valuable, particularly for younger players.

Golf development doesn’t follow a timetable.

A very strange penalty

The final round also produced one of those rules incidents that reminds us how peculiar golf can occasionally be.

Shaun Norris was penalised following an incident involving kicking a divot during the final round.

Golf has an enormous rulebook because the game happens across an enormous, unpredictable playing surface.

Every now and then we get a situation that proves why.

Ladies European Tour — a week off before Ireland

The Ladies European Tour had a scheduled week away from tournament competition following Eleanor Givens’ wonderful breakthrough victory in Switzerland.

And what comes next should be excellent.

The KPMG Women’s Irish Open begins at The K Club on 27 August, with 129 players from 33 countries expected to compete on the Palmer South Course.

Charley Hull is among the headline players alongside Ireland’s Áine Donegan and Beth Coulter.

Given the crowds women’s golf is increasingly attracting in Britain and Ireland, I expect this to be another terrific showcase.

LIV Golf — from NCAA champion to LIV winner in little more than a year

If you wanted a reminder of how quickly a professional career can accelerate, meet Michael La Sasso.

In May 2025 he won the NCAA Division I individual championship while representing Ole Miss.

He then turned professional and joined LIV Golf.

On Sunday in Indianapolis, playing only his 12th LIV event, the 22-year-old closed with a 65 to claim his first professional victory.

And this wasn’t a quiet little breakthrough.

La Sasso had shot 60 in round two, held the 54-hole lead and then had to deal with a leaderboard containing players with vastly more professional experience.

The youngest player on LIV handled it.

He also collected approximately $2.02 million for the victory.

That will make the transition from college golf feel fairly worthwhile.

The youngest and the oldest

Saturday had produced a wonderful pairing.

La Sasso, 22, was grouped alongside 53-year-old Richard Bland.

Thirty-one years between them. Same leaderboard. Same objective.

Bland joked beforehand that La Sasso would probably be 50 yards past him off the tee.

That’s one of golf’s great qualities.

Physical development matters enormously. But skill can remain competitive for decades.

Rahm and Legion XIII

Jon Rahm had already secured his third consecutive LIV individual championship before Indianapolis.

His Legion XIII team then completed the season by taking the team championship as well.

That means Rahm ends 2026 with both individual and team honours.

But LIV itself now enters a fascinating period.

Indianapolis became the season finale after the planned Michigan Team Championship was cancelled. LIV said the move would allow it to concentrate on a transition involving new investors after PIF stopped future investment earlier this year.

Whatever your opinion of LIV, that makes the next few months extremely significant.

The question is no longer simply which players it signs.

It is what the next version of LIV Golf actually looks like.

Andy’s Coaching Takeaway

Don’t confuse losing momentum with losing your game

Wyndham Clark’s finish is the coaching lesson I would take from this week.

He had a five-shot advantage.

Then suddenly he didn’t.

Many golfers experience exactly the same thing at club level.

You are playing beautifully. Then: bogey, poor drive, three-putt, another mistake.

And the internal conversation begins: “I’ve lost it.”

Usually you haven’t.

You’ve hit a couple of poor shots.

Clark’s response was not to rebuild his golf swing.

He birdied the final three holes.

Next time momentum turns against you, make the challenge smaller.

Don’t try to recover the previous six holes.

Ask: What does this shot require?

Then do that.

Golf becomes considerably easier when we stop trying to solve shots that have already happened.

Next week — the season finale, The Belfry and a big week for women’s golf

The PGA Tour reaches its conclusion with the Tour Championship at East Lake, August 27–30. Thirty players remain, with the FedExCup and a $10 million first prize awaiting the eventual champion.

And, as I’ve questioned above, perhaps the biggest issue for the PGA Tour isn’t whether the field is good enough — clearly it is. It’s whether the FedExCup can persuade viewers that winning it means something beyond the enormous cheque.

The DP World Tour returns to one of British golf’s most recognisable venues for the Husqvarna British Masters at The Belfry, also August 27–30. Former Masters champions Patrick Reed and Danny Willett are among the field, while the event also begins the qualification process for Europe’s 2027 Ryder Cup team.

The LET heads to The K Club for the KPMG Women’s Irish Open, August 27–30.

And the LPGA travels to Massachusetts for the FM Championship, again August 27–30.

LIV’s competitive season, meanwhile, is finished.

Plenty of golf still to come.

And plenty happening away from it too.