Free-agent wing Khris Middleton has agreed to re-sign with the Bucks on a five-year deal that sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski is worth $178 million contract.
Stay up to date with the latest deals, rumors and rumblings.
With Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and reliever Ryan Pressly added to the All-Star team, Houston has a MLB-leading six All-Stars.
He lost his parents and girlfriend in a plane crash. He spent time flipping houses to make ends meet. He was an alternate who wasn’t even supposed to be in the Rocket Mortgage Classic field. And now, he’s a PGA Tour winner.
The 2019 MLB All-Star Game rosters are out, and they feature plenty of new blood for the Midsummer Classic at Cleveland’s Progressive Field on July 9.
DETROIT — Nate Lashley completed an unlikely wire-to-wire victory in the Rocket Mortgage Classic on Sunday for his first PGA TOUR title. Lashley closed with a 2-under 70 to finish at 25-under 263 and win by six shots, the margin he took into the day after opening with rounds of 63, 67 and 63. The 36-year-old Lashley’s parents and girlfriend were killed in a plane crash 15 years ago. He dabbled in real estate after graduating from the University of Arizona, quit playing professional golf several years ago and resumed playing in PGA TOUR circuits. “Without my parents, I wouldn’t have started playing golf when I was little,” said Lashley, who began playing when he was 8. “They did everything to help me have a career.” Monday qualifier Doc Redman shot a 67 to finish second. Rory Sabbatini (68) and Wes Roach (68) were another stroke back. Lashley slipped into PGA TOUR’s first event in Detroit as an alternate Wednesday. The Nebraskan took full advantage, shooting a career-low 63 in the first round to take a lead he refused to lose at Detroit Golf Club. Lashley stayed atop the leaderboard with a 67 on Friday and gave himself a cushion with another 9-under 63 Saturday. On the brink of breaking through during his second PGA TOUR season, his sister, girlfriend, buddies and family friends flew to Detroit to join him. Brooke Lashley, who lives near her brother in Arizona, was in awe of as fans followed and cheered for her little brother as they stood along the ropes from tee to green. “I’m sure a lot of these people didn’t know him a couple days ago,” she said, standing near the No. 8 green. “He’s doing all he can to focus, but this is so incredible. It’s foreign to him because he’s never had this much attention. He’s never played in front of a gallery like this with TV cameras all over the place.” In 2014, parents Rod and Char Lashley and girlfriend Leslie Hofmeister, all of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, were missing for three days before their bodies and the wreckage were found near the 13,780-foot Gannett Peak in Wyoming after watching him play in a tournament for the University of Arizona. “It rocked our community,” recalled Helen Reinhardt, a family friend from Nebraska. Reinhardt and her husband, Jim, boarded a charter plane in Nebraska that stopped in Minnesota to pick up Lashley’s girlfriend and arrived in the Motor City on Sunday. “It’s great to be here to watch his dream come true after watching him play in the Dakotas Tour and work his way up to here,” said Jeff Peck, one of about a dozen of Lashley’s friends at Detroit Golf Club. Lashley made a living as a real estate agent after graduating from Arizona and his playing career started, stopped and resumed again. He won the Waterloo Open, a professional tournament, in Iowa in 2011 and quit competitive golf the next year. When Lashley was flipping houses, he thought his playing career was over. Lashley gave the game another shot, playing on the PGA TOUR Latinoamerica circuit in 2015 and moved up to what is now called the Korn Ferry Tour two years later. He made his PGA TOUR debut last season in his mid-30s, but he had to end his year after 17 events because of a knee injury. He tied for eighth in February in the Puerto Rico Open — played opposite the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship — for his only top-10 finish previously on TOUR. He started the tournament No. 132 in the FedExCup standings. Lashley would’ve had to collapse and one of the contenders would’ve had to have a sensational performance to put the final result in doubt. Neither happened. Lashley played it safe, putting together a conservative round that kept his comfortable lead. He made a slow-rolling, downhill putt from 15 feet to birdie the first hole. At No. 3, he started confidently walking toward the cup before his 10-foot birdie putt went in to put him at 25 under. “The birdies on 1 and 3 really calmed me down,” Lashley said. Lashley had two bogeys on the front nine — one more than he had the previous three rounds — and coasted to victory on the back with two birdies and no bogeys. Family and friends stood near the edge of the green as he closed out the round. Lashley’s girlfriend and sister, choking back tears, went onto the green to give him a hug. “I’m just real emotional,” he said later. “I’m just thankful I got in the tournament.”
Kevin Durant, 10-time All-Star and two-time Finals MVP, will sign a 4-year deal with the Nets. Brooklyn also struck deals with Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan.
The Nets are making a clean sweep in free agency. Kevin Durant has announced his move, and league sources told ESPN that Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan will join him in Brooklyn.
The Brooklyn Nets are making a clean sweep in free agency. The team will sign Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan, league sources tell ESPN.
DETROIT – No, golf is not life and death. But sometimes, it is death then life, and when you come across people built of such incomparable strength that they handle that most excruciating of sequences, you want for them to have a stage basked in brilliant sunshine and surrounded by adoring supporters. That moment arrived early Sunday evening for Nate Lashley – the stunning winner of the Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club – and it could not have been more perfect. Not because he had the 18th green to himself after romping to a six-stroke win over Doc Redman, but because he was embraced by his sister, Brooke, perhaps the only person is this world of ours who could even fathom the emotions that have consumed the two of them since that horrific day in May of 2004 when a plane crash claimed the lives of their parents, Rod and Char, and Nathan’s then girlfriend, Leslie Hofmeister. They had flown in Rod’s four-seat, single-engine Mooney M20K from Nebraska to watch Nate and his team play in the NCAA Regional and were returning home. “The rest of us don’t have a clue how he feels,� said Rick LaRose, who was Lashley’s coach at the University of Arizona 15 years ago when life changed forever. Brooke Lashley, who traveled to Pebble Beach two weeks ago to watch her brother play in the U.S. Open, was back home in Phoenix and a trip to Detroit GC “wasn’t on my radar.� At least, not until her brother, who got into the field mid-day Wednesday as the last alternate, started making birdie upon birdie upon birdie and Saturday’s third-round 63 propelled him into a six-shot lead. Then, the older sister said to herself, “I cannot not be there,� and that sentiment resonated in various homes in the Phoenix area, as well as with a small army of family friends in western Nebraska. Next thing you know, Saturday evening flights were made and Nate Lashley had an even larger following Sunday’s final round and when he birdied two of the first three holes, it was as if tens of thousands of people who flocked to this first-ever PGA TOUR tournament inside Detroit’s city limits were galvanized in a compelling drama of human spirit. “It made me feel like I wasn’t out there alone,� said Lashley, 36, a second-year member playing in just his 33rd TOUR tournament. Which was in stark contrast to all those times when he couldn’t help but feel alone and never felt the need to pull others into his private world. “Honestly, we’ve never talked about it and I’ve known him a long time,� said Ricky Romano, who played for the University of Houston, then on a series of minitours, crossing paths for years with Lashley. Two years ago, he agreed to caddie for Lashley, so, yes, there have been plenty of opportunities, but those who know Lashley afforded him well-deserved privacy. “I know Nate’s thinking about it. It’s got to be always on his mind,� said Greg Luebe, who coached Lashley in basketball at Mitchell High School in Mitchell, Neb. “But there was no way we needed to talk to him about it.� LaRose said he even offered Lashley as much time off as he wanted in the 2004-05 season, just months after the crash, “but he said no, that he wanted to return to school, play, and earn his degree.� Lashley did all of that, then he turned pro and struggled mightily, a poor season on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2006 led to one minitour stint after another until. What stands out is his success; Lashley won the Colorado Open, a couple of Waterloo Opens, he won on the Gateway Tour, on the EGolf Tour, on the Dakotas Tour, then in 2015 he won three times on the PGA TOUR Latinoamerica, which afforded him a chance to play on the Korn Ferry Tour where in 2017 he won the Corales Puntacana Resort. The list was read off to Scott Stallings, a TOUR winner who smiled. He was one of those who competed against Lashley in the 2008 Waterloo Open, so he can appreciate the man’s spirit. “I have so much respect for what he’s done, because the valleys are way more than the peaks,� said Stallings. “I’m rooting for him.� Stallings stood in line and Adam Shenk was right there with him. A second-year TOUR member, Shenk played against and traveled with Lashley on the PGA TOUR Latinoamerica and wasn’t surprised by the 27 birdies he made against just two bogeys in rounds of 63-67-63-70 – 263. “He’s not scared to go low, not scared to win,� said Shenk, who chose Lashley as his partner for a Latinoamerica team event in Mexico City. They finished eighth of 30 teams. “I think that attitude might have come from the adversity he faced in his life, that when compared to that, nothing really scares him.� Shenk, like Romano, never talked about the plane crash, but in the aftermath of his dominating win at Detroit GC – one that rewarded him with a check for $1.314 million, plus priceless job security – Lashley conceded that Luebe was correct. “I’ve been through a lot. It took a lot of years for me to get over (the deaths). It was mentally holding me back for a long time,� said Lashley, the world’s 353rd-ranked player whose only other top 10 before this week was a T-8 in Puerto Rico. “I think of my parents all the time. Without them, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.� Mixed into all those years of minor league golf was a time wen Lashley felt he needed to get a real job, so he turned to real estate. Brooke Lashley laughs when asked if she served as counsel for her brother. “Nate’s his own man,� she said. She also rejects the notion that he walked away from golf. “I always felt it was more of a break than a quit.� But will commiserate with Lashley’s colleagues and peers, nearly all of whom described him similarly. Very competitive on the course, almost to the point where he spent too much time beating himself up, but gentle and lighthearted off it. In fact, on Tuesday evening of the U.S. Open, there was a small gathering, a cookout with steaks and beverages and good talk. “It was a great evening,� said Romano, “so I said to (Nate), ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but why can’t you be like this on the golf course?’ � Romano isn’t sure, but he wonders if Lashley took that to be the compliment it was intended to be. Because even after he failed to get through the Monday qualifier for the Rocket Mortgage Classic, he remained upbeat. On Tuesday, Lashley was playing Detroit GC and came across veteran rules official Mark Russell, who encouraged him to stay positive, that he’d likely get in. He did and oh, did he take advantage. He birdied the very first hole, went out in 32, and little did anyone know that a story that would define the human spirit was being scripted. The vibes started building and out in Mitchell, Neb., the man who cherished his days as a high school basketball coach, embraced everything about this developing story. “Just amazing, given the tough times in his life,� said Luebe. “He was only 6-1, but he’d come up to me, knowing the other team’s best player was 6-4 and he’d say, ‘I’ll guard him, coach.’ Just a tremendous competitor.� If you sensed there were tears at the other end of the phone line, it was for good reason. Luebe was great friends with Rod Lashley, “we used to play a lot of golf together,� and it’s painful to recall the day that single-engine plane crashed into Gannett Peak in Wyoming. “The whole story still gives me a sense of sadness. But if anybody deserves something like this to happen to him, it’s Nate.� And Brooke, of course. The proud and incredibly strong sister stood greenside with Ashlie Reed, Lashley’s girlfriend, and a dozen or so friends from Phoenix and Nebraska. Everyone got a hug in with the winner, but Brooke’s was long and warm and filled with tears. “It’s a great lesson, that you can go through really, really tough times and still come out on top,� she said. Asked for what she said to her brother, Brooke wiped away tears and shook her head. They will remain private, just for brother and sister. The rest of the story is for everyone, for which we are blessed.
