Jon Machota, Cowboys beat writer for SportsDayDFW.com and The Dallas Morning News, answered questions about the team during a live chat Friday. Are we just gonna see Rico in 2018 at this point? Jon Machota: It’s starting to seem like we won’t see Rico on the field in 2017. Haven’t heard anything
Much has been made of the Charlotte 49ers’ offense and the role it played in the team’s 25-24 comeback victory in overtime two weeks ago against Ala.-Birmingham, snapping a 10-game losing streak. The 49ers did so playing without senior middle linebacker Karrington King, the defense’s signal-caller
As Tiger Woods has been on the sidelines for much of the past two years, one has to wonder: Why has Joe LaCava sat idly by with him? Don’t get us wrong, this is a 14-time major champion the looper is hanging with. But LaCava, who’s been on Woods’ bag since late 2011, is a renowned caddie who previously toted the bag for Dustin Johnson, Fred Couples, Davis Love III and Justin Leonard. He would have good offers for other caddie gigs if he asked, and LaCava said last year that he in fact did get requests from players for a part-time caddie job while Woods was out. His boss has also made it clear that LaCava was allowed to caddie for other players while he was out of action. But LaCava has apparently
• COURSE: El Camaleón GC, 6,987 yards, par 71. Three distinct landscapes come together to make up “The Chameleonâ€� – tropical jungle, dense mangroves and sand-lined oceanfront along the Riviera Maya. Designer Greg Norman even incorporated a cenote – an underground cavern common to the area – into the heart of the fifth fairway. The layout opened in 2004 and first hosted the PGA TOUR three years later, playing six its first six editions opposite the WGC Match Play until getting its own fall date in 2013. Last year, El Camaleón also served as one of two hosts for the World Amateur Team Championships. • FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 500 points. • CHARITY: The tournament supports nearly two dozen charitable outlets around Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula. Among them are the City of Joy Foundation, the Lorena Ochoa Foundation, the Mexican Red Cross and Rotary Clubs of Playa del Carmen and Cancún. • FIELD WATCH: Rickie Fowler, making his first start of the new season, comes to Mayakoba for the first time and will be joined by three U.S. Presidents Cup teammates. Charley Hoffman, Patrick Reed and Kevin Chappell complete the mini-reunion from Liberty National. … Pat Perez will defend his title just four weeks after winning again at the CIMB Classic in Malaysia. … Fowler holds the highest world ranking in the field at No.7. … Chris Stroud will keep his perfect attendance record intact at Mayakoba, the only man to tee it up in all 11 editions. … Oscar Fraustro, 13th last year after a closing 66, and PGA Tour member Abraham Ancer headline a group of five Mexican pros in the field. Other Latin American pros entered are Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo and Fabian Gomez, Jhonatttan Vegas (Venezuela) and Camilo Villegas (Colombia). • 72-HOLE RECORD: 263, Harris English (2013), Pat Perez (2016). • 18-HOLE RECORD: 61, Roland Thatcher (3rd round, 2008). • LAST YEAR: Perez triumphed in just his third start after an eight-month layoff for shoulder surgery, using a 62-67 weekend to eventually overtake Gary Woodland down the stretch at Mayakoba. Perez birdied five of his first eight holes on the final day and stayed aggressive to claim a two-stroke triumph and match the tournament scoring record. His comeback had begun just three weeks earlier with a share of 33rd in Malaysia, followed by a tie for seventh in Las Vegas. The 40-year-old California native’s only previous victory came at the 2009 Bob Hope Classic, though he added a third win last month in Malaysia. Woodland used two closing birdies to finish alone in second; Russell Knox took third. • STORYLINES: Though the fall schedule has tilted toward showcasing young pros in recent years, the OHL Classic has largely bucked that trend through its 10 editions. Perez became the eighth champion in his 30s or older, with the average age of that group at 38.1. … Despite the international locale, nine of the first 10 editions of the OHL Classic have been captured by American-born players. The lone exception was Graeme McDowell, who prevailed in a 2015 playoff. … Perez, McDowell and Hoffman are among seven former champions back with a chance to become the event’s first multiple winner. The others: Brian Gay (2008), Johnson Wagner (2011), John Huh (2012), Harris English (2013). … Four OHL Classics have been decided in playoffs, including Huh’s 2012 marathon over Robert Allenby that went eight extra holes. • SHORT CHIPS: Chez Reavie, who had teed it up every week until taking last week off after the TOUR’s Asian Swing, returns to action. Stroud and Villegas are among eight others set for their fifth starts of the new season. … At under 7,000 yards, Mayakoba for several years was a preferred stop for PGA TOUR Champions pros. Scheduling makes that less of an opportunity these days – it’s also the week of the Charles Schwab Cup finale in Phoenix. • TELEVISION: Thursday-Sunday, 1-4 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). • PGA TOUR LIVE: None. • RADIO: Thursday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com). Â
League lawyers fielded a slew of discovery requests this week related to Colin Kaepernick’s lawsuit, creating unease in certain quarters.
Tiger Woods entered a new realm before returning to the place where he’s most familiar. Woods, who is scheduled to return to golf at the Hero World Challenge later this month, made his podcast debut with a 77-minute interview with University of Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma. Woods sandwiched the interview between a workout – “The endorphins are up,â€� he told Auriemma – and a 40-mile bike ride. “I think I feel really good in the fact that my back’s not aching, my legs are starting to come back and my overall golf fitness is starting to come around,â€� said Woods, who had an anterior lumbar interbody fusion in April. “I’ve never had my back fused. It’s a different feeling. I’m a little bit tighter. I don’t have the pain. It’s a whole new realm for me. I don’t know if I’m going to loosen up or if this is the way I’m always going to be.â€� Later in the interview, he said that the surgery has helped his posture while addressing the golf ball. “Any time (before surgery) I tried to build a good posture over the golf ball, I would get pain down my leg and my right foot wouldn’t work,â€� he said. He’ll also be able to run soon, something he hasn’t done in five years because of his back problems. This is likely the longest recorded interview with Woods that’s ever been released. It was impossible to not learn something new from it. But in a forum that begged for him to open up in an unprecedented way, the listener was left without any significant insights or revelations that gave a deeper understanding of Woods. Some of that responsibility, of course, falls on the interviewer, and Auriemma didn’t seem interested in pushing his friend too far into unprecedented territory. Even so, it’s always enjoyable to listen to Woods talk about golf. He’s arguably the greatest golfer of all time, and an astute student of the game. The podcast was like prime-time television: entertaining, but not paradigm-shifting. Woods’ interview came in the second episode of “Holding Court with Geno Auriemmaâ€�. Basketball stars Kyrie Irving and Sue Bird headlined the show’s debut. Woods and Auriemma discussed the golf ball (Woods joined the chorus of voices calling for it to be rolled back) and influences in Woods’ life, as well as fly fishing and his vengeful 9-and-8 win over Stephen Ames in the 2006 World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. “I just think that he didn’t quite respect the way I could play the game of golf. I just had to show him that I could still play,â€� Woods said. “You have no idea how ticked I was to miss that putt on the 10th hole to beat him 10 and 8.â€� Woods and Auriemma had a chummy rapport, and most of the interview had the tone and depth you would expect from a conversation between two men whose success has come in the sporting realm. The conversation did drift occasionally into Woods’ life away from golf, though. He said his children, Charlie and Sam, play soccer and flag football and enjoy fishing. “I’m trying to get my son into fly fishing,â€� Woods said. “That’s something I thoroughly enjoy, to be able to present a fly in the perfect spot and have it drift over a fish and have him hit it.â€� Woods called a good cast “the ultimate.â€� He told the story of his children meeting Lionel Messi and Rafael Nadal, and how he impressed on them that the two men they’d just met are legends in their respective sports. “They said, ‘Yeah, but we live with one, too,’â€� Woods said. “I didn’t really think that they knew me that way. That put me backwards a little bit. I was very shocked by that.â€� Auriemma, who said he won an $800 off Woods from a wager on last year’s Hero, did try at least three times to get him to talk about his closest friendships. Woods didn’t give much, leading Auriemma to ask if he’d ever consider a career in politics because of his propensity to answer a question without revealing too much. “Everything you say is very measured, very thoughtful, very thought out,â€� Auriemma said. “I’m surprised because our friend Charles (Barkley) is like turning on the spigot.â€� Woods referred to “a couple guys in the business world, self-made billionairesâ€� when asked about his confidantes, though that question also led him to talk about getting his handprint set in cement with Nelson Mandela. Three copies of the cast were made: one for Woods, one for Mandela and one for Mandela’s museum. “I still get chills just thinking about it,â€� Woods said in probably the weightiest moment of the interview. “The middle of the palm, the blank spot, is the shape of Africa.â€� Woods said he plays golf with Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler and employees in his office but also admit that, “I have a lot of acquaintances.â€� His closest friends are the people from his childhood, but “they have their own lives. We’ve grown up together, done a lot of things together, but we all lead different lives.â€� When asked who gets to see the “realâ€� version of himself, Woods fell back on his oft-discussed enjoyment in giving his peers and fellow players “the needle.â€� “It’s usually my friends. It’s me giving them a bunch of crap about a lot of different things, more than anything when we compete,â€� Woods said. “That’s when it really gets fun.â€� Auriemma is obviously a passionate golf fan – he quickly recalled Oregon’s Pumpkin Ridge as the site of Woods’ third U.S. Amateur victory – and the highlights came when he asked Woods about his time between the ropes, where Woods said he feels “more at home there than I do most places.â€� Woods said he would like to see the golf ball fly shorter distances and called for bifurcation (different rules for professionals and amateurs) but said the difficulty lies in determining the “line of demarcationâ€� where the divide in rules should occur. “If the game keeps progressing the way it is with technology, the 8,000-yard golf course is not too far away,â€� he said. “I don’t see (bifurcation) happening in the near future, but at least there’s talk about it now.â€� Woods named Moe Norman and Lee Trevino as the greatest ball-strikers he’s ever seen, and said that Vijay Singh and David Duval were the best among his contemporaries. Among this current crop of players, he singled out Thomas, the FedExCup champion, and World No. 1 Dustin Johnson. Of Thomas, Woods said: “The way Justin Thomas hits the ball is pretty impressive. It doesn’t have a whole lot of curve to it. He hits it very, very flush.â€� And he noted Johnson’s ability to “hit the golf ball at that speed and that velocity and not hit it crooked.â€� Comparing today’s players to their predecessors, Woods said that YouTube has led to the end of unique golf swings because it gives players an endless number of technically sound swings to analyze from every angle. “You can copy a golf swing and make yourself look like that particular person,â€� he said. “These guys didn’t have video cameras. They had to go find it in the dirt and whatever worked for them, that’s what they went with.â€� Auriemma closed the interview by asking Woods for ways in which he felt he was misunderstood. He compared himself to a courtroom lawyer to dispel the theory that he didn’t enjoy the game, which he called his “bastion.â€� “If you’re a lawyer and you’re in the courtroom, are you smiling the entire time as you’re trying to win your case? No, because you have work to do,â€� Woods said. “That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to grind it out and shoot the best score possible, and it takes a certain level of focus for me to do it. Unfortunately, that’s what people have based their assumptions on. What they see.â€�
Houston strong: Fans honor champion Astros
LAS VEGAS – TPC Summerlin has yielded rounds of 60 and 61 to PGA Tour winners the last two years, but low scores will prove scarce as winds strengthen this weekend at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. “I don’t think that’s out there today,� Graeme McDowell said after his second consecutive 70. “Sixty-five from Robert Garrigus, I think, is a hell of a score this morning.� Winds are expected to gust around 20 miles per hour for the afternoon and to stay that way through the next two days on this largely open layout. As McDowell mentioned, Garrigus was able to navigate the difficult conditions Friday en route to a 6-under 65 and the early second-round lead. He sandwiched eight birdies around
Beal: Wizards best in East, control own destiny
The Dodgers had the highest payroll in baseball, but they still lost in the World Series.
