There’s a lot of football left to be played in 2018, but as the halfway point of the NFL season draws near, it’s not hard to identify some of the league’s top up-and-coming talent, especially considering four of this year’s five first-round quarterbacks are already on the field as starters
Patrice Bergeron and Boston look for their fifth straight victory as they visit Calgary.
One trend in the NFL has been players growing their hair long. Whether it’s a fashion statement or just a love for long locks, players such as Clay Matthews of the Packers or Chris Ivory of the Buffalo Bills have made the look popular over the past decade or so. But those looks sometimes come with
It might be a little early, but this week’s home-and-home series between Winnipeg and Toronto could be for the title of Canada’s team.
Alex Ovechkin and Stanley Cup champion Washington renew their divisional rivalry with New York in the first of four meetings between the teams this season.
JEJU ISLAND, South Korea — India’s rising star Shubhankar Sharma is keen to maintain his push for a PGA TOUR card and a spot on the Presidents Cup’s International Team when he tees up at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES starting on Thursday. The young Indian finished T10 at the CIMB Classic in Malaysia last weekend after entering the final round as the joint third-round leader, but the disappointment was quickly forgotten when South African legend Ernie Els, who is captain of the Presidents Cup’s International Team, invited him for a nine-hole practice round here on Tuesday. It brought back great memories for Sharma, who was hand-picked by Els to hit shots during a golf clinic in New Delhi in 2008. He is now fired up to launch another strong run in this week’s event, which is the only PGA TOUR tournament in South Korea. “We were just chatting a lot about his life on TOUR,â€� said Sharma of his day with Els. “He said he’s so happy that kids like me are coming up now and that the International Team is actually looking really strong. I think he’s a great captain and definitely we’ll have a great team together.â€� He recalled travelling to Delhi Golf Club to watch the Indian Masters and remembers vividly what Els, a four-time major winner, told him during the clinic. “I traveled a long way just to get to Delhi,â€� said Sharma. “I walked with Ernie in the first round and I think after the second round was when he had his clinic. I was one of the lucky ones to go up to him and say hi and then obviously hit a few shots with his 9‑iron. There was like a 100-yard board on the range and I hit both my shots, landed right next to the board. The crowd was clapping and it was quite a good moment for me. “There were two or three kids before me who tried to hit it and they couldn’t really connect. It was his club, it was like a heavy 9-iron, so just to hit those two shots was very special and that made my day.â€� “And then Ernie gave me his card, he signed his card and gave it to me and he said, ‘You’ll be a good player one day, just keep working hard.’ So we were talking about it yesterday, and it’s always nice when I remember that day.â€� Els, who has competed in eight Presidents Cups, believes Sharma will contend for a place on his International Team. “I played with Shubhankar, who’s had an incredible year. He’s won a few times around the world in one year and he’s only 22 years old,â€� said the 49-year-old.  “I wasn’t familiar that he was right behind me when we were hitting balls and we were talking about it. Those kind of stories doesn’t normally happen. You watch your hero play and you want be like him. It’s not many times (that) it comes to fruition,â€� added Els. “I had the same situation with Gary Player where I asked him for his autograph when I was a kid and he doesn’t even remember. But it made such an impact in my life, and it’s amazing how it translates in your mind and changes your life. It’s amazing how you can touch lives without even knowing.â€� With countryman and close friend Anirban Lahiri having played the last two Presidents Cups, Sharma has made it a goal for him to get to Royal Melbourne. “The next Presidents Cup is going to be huge with Ernie and Tiger (Woods) being the captains,â€� he said. “The International Team could have pulled off a great win in Korea (in 2015). It definitely ranks in the top three (goals) with the majors and with the WGCs. Playing the Presidents Cup would be a huge honor.â€� “Anirban has done it, and if both of us can make the team, that will be the icing on the cake. Obviously we’ll have more fans back home in India. We have more than a billion people in India, and maybe a few percent will follow the Presidents Cup if we do make it. I think it will be great for our country and for golf back in Asia.â€� Sharma contended in Malaysia last weekend before slipping back with a closing 72. As he is in the field at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES and also in next week’s World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, both with no halfway cuts, he is hoping to take a big step towards earning his PGA TOUR card via the non-member FedExCup points category. “Only good things, positives to take away from last week,â€� said Sharma, who got into this week’s field as the highest ranked player from the Asian Tour. “It’s always good when you’re in contention at a PGA TOUR event and I’ve been lucky enough to be in contention twice this year, leading after three days in both the tournaments. So I just want to take positives. “A top‑10 finish is never bad on the PGA TOUR even though I would have liked to be slightly higher than that, but I just want to take positives out of last week. I feel like my game’s in a good spot and I have two more weeks, this week and next week as well, so (I’ll) try and do my best and we’ll see how it goes,â€� said Sharma who finished T9 at the WGC-Mexico Championship in February.
Expert picks and analysis from the CJ Cup @ Nine Bridges—who do PGA Tour caddies and our expert handicappers think will win?
If the national amateur golf stage never fazed Jim Wiechers, the reason was simple. Just to fare well locally in the San Francisco area in the 1960s, Wiechers had to compete against the likes of a rising teenage star named Johnny Miller, future PGA TOUR winners such as Ron Cerrudo, Bob Lunn and Dick Lotz, and a legendary veteran named E. Harvie Ward. That accomplished, Wiechers knew he could more than hold his own in the deep end of the pool. Which he did with distinction. Wiechers won the 1962 U.S. Junior Amateur, the 1964 Western Junior, the 1966 Western Amateur, and finished second, one shot behind Marty Fleckman, at the 1965 NCAA Div. 1 Championship. That Wiechers, who died Monday night at the age of 74, failed to carry that winning touch over to a 12-year PGA TOUR career that featured 32 top 10s, none of them victories, surprised Cerrudo, but never seemed to unsettle his friend. “If it did bother him, he never showed it,” said Cerrudo. “He was just a good person. He’s the only person I know who never had a disparaging word spoken against him.â€� Susan Wiechers confirmed that her husband died at Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, California, after a four-month illness. Born in Atherton, California, on August 7, 1944, Wiechers was a young teenager when he got swept into the rabid amateur golf circle that engulfed the Bay Area. “We got to know each other when were 15,â€� said Cerrudo, “and we were always together.â€� Wiechers, Cerrudo and two other Bay Area players who later became PGA TOUR members – Bob E. Smith and Ross Randall – traveled the country playing the biggest amateur tournaments when they were 20 and 21. “One summer, every passenger in our car won a big tournament,â€� said Cerrudo. As had been Bay Area icons such as Ward, Ken Venturi and Tony Lema years earlier, Wiechers, Cerrudo, Smith and Randall were backed by the famed Eddie Lowery. “We were so blessed to have competition like that,â€� said Cerrudo, now the director of instruction at the Daniel Island Club in Charleston, South Carolina. “We heard so much about guys in the Northeast, when we finally saw them, we said, ‘Hey, we have 25 guys back in the Bay Area who are better than these guys.â€� Wiechers didn’t have to take a back seat to any of them, said Cerrudo. “He was one of the world’s greatest putters inside of 5 feet. We always said if he could put his putting with my driving, he’d have won a bunch.â€� As it was, Wiechers’ playoff loss to Bob Goalby in the 1969 Robinson Open Golf Classic was his best PGA TOUR finish in 277 tournaments. Later in ’69, Wiechers did win the West End Classic in the Bahamas, but that was an unofficial event. He played in the 1976 Masters, four U.S. Opens, three PGA Championships, and three PLAYERS Championships. His best season was 1973 when he earned $74,807 for 33rd place, his highest finish on the money list. But to Cerrudo, whose own PGA TOUR career included two wins while running virtually concurrently (1967-1978) to his friend’s, Wiechers “was a very steady player who just quietly got the job done.â€� Having followed Cerrudo to live at the Silverado Resort & Spa in Napa in the late 1960s, Wiechers loved the area and got into the wine business upon leaving the PGA TOUR. But eventually he returned to golf as an instructor, then as coach of the men’s and women’s teams at Napa Valley College. “He was very talented . . . an amazing player,â€� Miller told Marty James of the Napa News. Another onetime resident of Silverado, PGA TOUR Champions standout Scott McCarron, considered Wiechers a mentor. “I used to practice with him. He and Ron Cerrudo would be over at my parents’ house on Friday evenings for dinner and tell us stories about the TOUR,â€� he told James. “Jimmy Wiechers was really the guy that got me thinking, ‘Hey, I could someday play on the PGA TOUR as well.’â€� Wiechers, who was a member of the Santa Clara University Hall of Fame, is also survived by a daughter, Erica; son-in-law Jason Kuykendall; grandson Evan Kuykendall; a brother; and two sisters. Â
Christian Yelich has a .500/.550/.889 line against Clayton Kershaw, the highest OPS any hitter has against the Dodger ace. But because of how he got to that mark, it doesn’t guarantee that success is going to follow in NLCS Game 5.
There’s no time to be tired for the Brewers and Dodgers, who departed after midnight following a 13-inning marathon in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series and will be back on the field this afternoon for Game 5 to decide which team moves within one victory of the World Series.
