Auburn Hills – This probably will not be the most exciting offseason in Detroit Pistons history. After making their big splash in January when they acquired superstar Blake Griffin from the Los Angeles Clippers, the team doesn’t exactly have a lot of wiggle room when the NBA’s 2018-19 year officially
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Here are nine tidbits from the first round of the Quicken Loans National that gamers can use tomorrow, this weekend or down the road. TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm hosts for the second time and measures 7,107 yards (Par-70).  KNOW THY ENEMY These were the top-10 selected golfers in the PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf game presented by SERVPRO. Perfect scoring conditions greeted the morning wave as Andrew Landry tied the professional course record with his bogey-free 63. The afternoon side wasn’t bad either, as another 63 by J.J. Spaun gave us co-leaders after the opening round. The weather will just be hotter tomorrow and the winds relatively similar, so there won’t be a tactical advantage on tee times. The afternoon folks will need to be properly hydrated! PEOPLE’S CHOICE J.B. Holmes isn’t a name we’ve seen at the top of the list or even on the list in recent memory. Gamers are riding the wave of hot, albeit deliberate, play from the big hitter from Kentucky as he’s hit the podium in his last two events. He found 10 fairways and 10 GIR but could only get up-and-down on four of the eight he missed. The ones he did hit left him 117th out of 120 players in proximity. His best round in five here is 71 so gamers will have a decision whether or not to use the bench in Round 2. This was only his second round in the black in his last 17 rounds. RECORD DUO Landry and Spaun both used seven birdies without squaring a bogey to set the first round pace. Since his victory at the Valero Texas Open, another difficult track, Landry has played just two of six weekends and his best payday is T65. He MC last week 81-67 but that was a distant memory today. Spaun popped up at Trinity Forest where he opened with 64 and closed with 63 to share third. Gamers hoping to ride that wave were smacked with MC, MC and T47 in his last three outings. Spaun led the field in Round 1 in SG: off the tee as he split 12-of-14 fairways (T1). He fired 73-78 here last year to MC. HOST WITH THE MOST Tiger Woods finally gets a chance to play at his own tournament, and he looked to create some momentum with a new putter in the bag. Gamers remember that he blistered Memorial tee-to-green but made absolutely nothing. The putter didn’t solve all of his problems as he lost over one shot on the greens but his tee-to-green game wasn’t on point either. The greatest part of Woods’ game is his ability to grind. He wiped out a double with a pair of birdies and added 15 pars to sign for 70 (E). An early start on fresh greens should kick-start the putter in Round 2. HOOK ‘EM That sound you hear every Thursday is Beau Hossler. For the 10th event running his Round 1 scorecard is in red figures. For the third event in a row it has been 66 or better has his six birdies and one bogey added up to 65 (T5) today. Finishing the job is the next step as he’s only hit the top 10 in one of those three events, T2 last week at TPC River Highlands. He hasn’t MC in this stretch either so this isn’t smoke or mirrors. CIAO! Francesco Molinari made his way into the top 10, and rightfully so as gamers are paying attention. He enters the week in an excellent form as his last three worldwide paychecks have been for a win, second and T25. If the main requirement this week is navigating this track tee-to-green it shouldn’t be any surprise he opened with 67. BRAKES PUMPED While 71 (+1) didn’t knock Kyle Stanley out of contention, it surely wasn’t the start gamers were expecting from the defending champion. Driving wasn’t the issue as he found 12-of-14 fairways but his approach play saw him check in at No. 98. The good news is he’s third on TOUR in GIR so this goes down as an aberration for me and I’m expecting normal service to resume tomorrow. WALK THE LINE Jimmy Walker has played great for almost three months, and that’s why his 74 in Round 1 was surprising. Marc Leishman only hit three fairways and shot 67, so scoring here can happen. Walker found just seven fairways but checked in at No. 111 in SG: putting and only saved par in three of seven chances missing GIR. He opened on No. 10 with an unplayable and a water ball for double-bogey seven so it could have been worse! He’ll need to make more than one birdie in Round 2. STUDY HALL The Round 1 scoring average was 69.992 (-0.008) as opposed to 71.203 in the inaugural year last year. The 18-hole lead last year was 65. No wind helps! There were eight bogey-free rounds all of last year as this course was the most difficult (non-major) on TOUR. There were five on Friday as red-hot Andrew Putnam (64), Seamus Power (66) and Joel Dahmen (66) joined Landry on Spaun in the clean card club. C.T. Pan (67) broke his driver on No. 14, but still found a way to birdie that hole and the next two. His eight birdies for the round led the field. He gets to put in a new driver on Friday.
With his suspension now official, Tampa Bay’s QB enters a season that could decide the long-term outlook for himself and others with the franchise.
POTOMAC, Md. — Tiger Woods used a new putter and got the same middling results Thursday in the Quicken Loans National. Woods battled back from a double bogey with five straight birdie chances from 8 feet or closer. He made only two of them and had to settle for an even-par 70, leaving him seven shots out of the lead in the opening round on the TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm. Andrew Landry set the pace on a difficult, but rain-softened course with a 7-under 63. J.J. Spaun matched him in the afternoon, playing in the group behind Woods without hardly anyone noticing that he played bogey-free while running off five birdies in a seven-hole stretch. Landry, who won the Texas Open in April for his first PGA TOUR title, also had a new putter in the bag. All the attention was on Woods, who had hoped a mallet-style putter might help him shake out of a putting slump. It didn’t. “I shot about the score I should have shot today,” Woods said. He never made a putt outside 10 feet, and the final stretch in the afternoon appeared to be a wasted chance to salvage a score under par. Woods also kept his round from getting worse with two big par saves to start the back nine, including an up-and-down from 147 yards on No. 11 after driving it into the trees. “This is a course that’s going to get tougher as the week goes on,” Woods said. It was plenty tough for him in his first competition on the TPC Potomac, and his first time playing the tournament since 2015. This also is the last edition, and the field is among the weakest on the PGA TOUR this year. Rickie Fowler is the only player in the top 10 in the world, and he also rallied for a 70. Even when he kept it in the short grass off the tee, Woods didn’t have a reasonable birdie chance until No. 5, and he missed from 10 feet. And then he ran into trouble on the par-4 sixth, starting with a tee shot he pulled left that caromed off a tree and landed in a the mown path that leads from the tee to the fairway. Woods tried to hit a 3-wood to the green and it came up short and into the hazard. He had to drop it in more rough, came up just short of the green and wound up making a 4-foot putt to escape with double bogey. Going with an iron off the tee at the par-5 10th, he pulled that into the hazard but at least was able to chop it back to the fairway, rip fairway metal around the green and chip it close to save par. On the next hole, he blasted a tee shot well right, over the gallery, and had to pitch out back into play again. He said the 6-foot par putt gave him momentum, and he was never under much stress the rest of the day. He just didn’t make anything. Woods missed from 10 feet and 6 feet on his next two holes. He made his first birdie on No. 14 with a 3-foot putt, only to badly miss from 7 feet on the next hole. “I didn’t really have anything going through the middle part of the round,” Woods said. “I hit some poor tee shots and didn’t really give myself a chance. I have to do a better job of getting more chances.” He had no beef with the putter, saying he rolled it well and hit plenty of good putts that didn’t fall. “Most of the good scores were shot in the morning,” Woods said. “Hopefully, I can go out there and do it myself.” The course was the fourth-toughest on the PGA TOUR last year, trailing only three majors, though it was soft enough and the wind was mild so that low scores were available. Kyle Stanley won at 7-under 273 last year. Landry and Spaun shared the lead at 7 under after one round. “I expect that if we don’t get any rain the next few days, the course is going to firm up, greens get firm, get a little bit quicker, but it’s not going to be like last year,” Billy Horschel said after his 64. “So you’re going to have to go out with the mindset that it’s a little bit different course, you can’t be as conservative, you’ve got to still try and make birdies.” Andrew Putnam also was at 64 while playing in the afternoon. Beau Hossler and Abraham Ancer were another shot behind. Woods has been at least six shots behind — and no better than a tie for 29th — after the opening round of his last six tournaments dating to the Masters.
Cristiano Ronaldo has been amazing. Other teams and players have not. Who made our list?
Cristiano Ronaldo has been amazing. Other teams and players have not. Who made our list?
