Day: January 14, 2020

An’s goals in 2020? A win … and a trip to East LakeAn’s goals in 2020? A win … and a trip to East Lake

January 14, 2020January 14, 2020| 12:00

Byeong Hun An has set a target of qualifying for the FedExCup Playoffs finale, the TOUR Championship, in August and hopes to light up the International Team’s chat group along the way as he seeks his first PGA TOUR victory. The 28-year-old Korean rising star tees up at The American Express in California for the first time this week where he hopes to maintain his strong start to the 2019-20 PGA TOUR season. During the fall, he posted three top-10s and a T14 at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions and is currently 20th on the FedExCup points list. As a late inclusion in the Presidents Cup last month in Australia, An played all five sessions and delivered two points in the International Team’s narrow 16-14 loss to the United States “Hopefully I can keep the momentum going from the Asian swing,� said An, who finished T6 at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES in Korea and T8 at the inaugural ZOZO Championship in Japan. Since playing full time on the PGA TOUR in 2017, An has flirted with qualifying for the TOUR Championship, which is exclusive to the top 30 from the FedExCup points list. His best FedExCup finish to date was 42nd in 2017 while he was 53rd last season. A former U.S. Amateur winner, An is hopeful a revised playing schedule will propel him to a first visit to East Lake in August. Over the last few years, he competed in the Middle East on the European Tour to begin a new year, but he will play the West Coast over the next three weeks, including the Farmers Insurance Open and Waste Management Phoenix Open. “It’s nice to have a good start (in fall) compared to the last two years where I didn’t play that many,� he explained. “I’m starting earlier in the West Coast as well and I hope to have a quick start and eventually get into the TOUR Championship … that’s my main goal this year.� An took notice when Rory McIlroy talked about how tweaking his tournament schedule enabled the Irishman to lift the FedExCup for a second time last season. With An’s wife Jamie due to give birth to their first child next month, the Korean made the easy call to swap his travel plans. “In the past, I would only start in Phoenix after the Middle East and I’ll be like in 100th place on the points list and it’s hard to chase the guys,� said An. “That’s why I added this week and the next two. I want to get my FedExCup ranking as high up as possible early on. I’ve been close (to the TOUR Championship) and I feel I need to play more and it seems to be working out.� He is also fired up after watching Australia’s Cameron Smith secure a first individual PGA TOUR title at the Sony Open in Hawaii on Sunday and now dreams of emulating his International Team member. An said the International Team’s Whatsapp group chat has been buzzing recently as Adam Scott won the week after the Presidents Cup, Louis Oosthuizen came close at the South African Open (finishing second to his former International Team partner Branden Grace) and Joaquin Niemann contended at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. “It was incredible to see Cam win. Hopefully I can break through and win one day. Our group chat has been going crazy of late. Hopefully this week someone else can step up, hopefully me or Sungjae (Im) or someone else. It shows the Presidents Cup has helped us. The group chat is still running and it’s great,� An said. Although the International Team came close to toppling the U.S. Team after leading into the final day’s Singles session, An believes the experience of playing for Captain Ernie Els earned him memories to last a lifetime. “It was good because I got a late call from Ernie,� An said. “I wasn’t expecting to play in all five matches which were incredible. I did lose a couple, won one and tied two matches which was fun. It was something I never experienced before and Ernie did a great job. Everyone trusted him and stuck to the game plan. No one had any say on who we wanted to play with and we just had faith in Ernie to pick the pairings. We got the points on Thursday, Friday and Saturday but lost in the end. On paper, the U.S. is a really good team and we were disappointed.� “We just didn’t play well enough in the Singles to beat them. But we showed we could play better in Foursomes and Four-Ball than previously. That’s a great takeaway from the week and it showed Ernie had the right formula. I enjoyed it as it had so much passion as we were playing as a team and not playing for ourselves. When Adam or Sungjae made a putt, I was probably happier than they were! I played for Ernie and I played for the International Team, which was a difference and I guess that was why I showed the passion on the course. “Of course I want to get back into the team … that’s another goal in two years’ time.�

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How Phil became a social media starHow Phil became a social media star

January 14, 2020January 14, 2020| 10:30

According to one estimate, some 500 million tweets fly through the Twittersphere daily. And those are just the ones sent by Phil Mickelson. OK, that’s not technically true, but sometimes it seems that way. Since jumping into social media with both feet on Aug. 22, 2018, Mickelson — who this week takes on a new role as host of The American Express tournament in Palm Desert, California — has been a high-volume, high-quality, must-follow in the world of golf and beyond. “I didn’t realize how powerful a tool it was,â€� Mickelson tells the PGA TOUR. He does now. How did Mickelson, who didn’t even have a Twitter account 18 months ago, become such a player amongst golf’s social media set? To borrow a phrase from the man himself, it’s a recent development. ’I’ve got this Twitter thing down’ Mickelson will turn 50 this summer, which means when he first joined the PGA TOUR, “socialâ€� meant you happened to get paired with Lee Trevino. When that began to change, he played on, leaving social media to younger players and veterans such as Stewart Cink, Ian Poulter and Bubba Watson, early adopters all. It didn’t last. When along came Mickelson’s big-money, winner-take-all match against Tiger Woods in November 2018, the popular lefthander, a 44-time TOUR winner, wanted a way to promote it. His inaugural tweet, a GIF of him winking while at the Presidents Cup, featured the copy, “I got this @Twitter thing down.â€� Well, yes and no. He had to get up to speed on a new platform, and a language spoken more fluently by his kids and players like Thomas and Rickie Fowler. No worries; Mickelson backed up his bravado. He was funny, zany and daring. He was also prolific. If his match with Tiger inspired the leap into social media, then Mickelson’s earlier Mizzen+Main commercial, a goofy spot for performance menswear in which he danced and did the worm, informed his style. The video went viral, not only opening his eyes to the power of social media but establishing his brand of self-effacing humor. This led to half-serious, half-mocking posts about his calves and thumbs. If you were following him on Twitter or Instagram recently, you would have seen him working out in the gym, skiing down a mountain, and taking a selfie with his coaches and caddie. The copy read, in part: “I am ready to work hard and play some great golf again.â€� #hitbombs #attackpins Says Henrik Stenson, who posts only intermittently, “It takes a lot of effort to be that active. Whether that’s because he thinks it’s a lot of fun or to raise his profile and gain more followers and give more value to his sponsors, I’m not sure.â€� The answer to the “whyâ€� question is multi-pronged, but in general Mickelson says he wants to provide a forum for stories that have gone untold, and for players whose personalities don’t always come across when they’re between the ropes. He also just wants to have fun because, well, he’s Mickelson. He ticks all those boxes with “Phireside with Phil,â€� talk-show style interviews with TOUR pros (Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Thomas, a shirtless Zach Johnson) and others (comedian Larry David). The setting: anywhere. The subject matter: anything. His one rule: Stories can’t denigrate anyone except, maybe, the person telling them. “I think everybody that watches those feels they’re getting the insight onto what’s going on on TOUR, and some funny little things that have happened,â€� Mickelson says. Some cringe-worthy things, too. Zach Johnson absent his shirt doesn’t even rate as cringe-worthy compared to a few other Mickelson moments, but it does beg for an explanation. “Well, if you know Zach, when we play in the team events, he walks around shirtless all the time,â€� Mickelson says. “So it’s just him, it’s just who he is. And I think it came to him, ‘Look, I’ll be on your show if I can be shirtless.’â€� The response has been unmistakable; people are watching, even if it’s through their fingers. Stenson, who beat Mickelson in an instant-classic duel at the 2016 Open Championship at Troon, has not been on yet but hasn’t ruled it out. “He asked me, but we were soaked in rain gear after one of the practice rounds at the British Open, so it never happened,â€� Stenson says. “Yeah, I’ll join him at the Phireside at some point when the timing is right.â€� Given the popularity of the Phireside concept, and the fact that Mickelson has 715,000 followers on Twitter alone – picking up north of 100,000 on day one – Gary Woodland sums it up nicely when he says of Lefty’s social media game, “I would say it’s pretty strong for a guy coming out of nowhere.â€� Legendary Tweet-storms The most popular athletes on Instagram are soccer players, and they start at 200 million followers (Cristiano Ronaldo). But Mickelson holds his own in the golf space with 716,000, between Ian Poulter (423,000) and Bubba Watson (791,000). If nothing else, Mickelson has proven that golf Twitter and golf Instagram are not just the domain of the young. World Golf Hall of Famer Gary Player calls Mickelson a great follow. So does PGA TOUR Champions player Brad Faxon. “He’s hysterical,â€� Faxon says. “Almost like you want to shut your eyes and not watch some of the stuff he does. Childlike enthusiasm. Talk about no inhibitions. I admire it. Hope he plays great this year but really hope he gets me on his phireside chat.â€� Adds Player, “Phil gets it right. His personality shines through. He is engaging, funny and authentic.â€� No doubt, Mickelson has cultivated a loyal following. Whom does he follow back? On Twitter, his tastes run toward fellow TOUR pros and LPGA stars, but also the NFL (Tom Brady, J.J. Watt, Antonio Gates of the L.A. Chargers). He follows golf media (NBC’s Dan Hicks, David Feherty, Peter Jacobsen) and even some of the parody accounts that have taken an interest in him. Few of these accounts, though, are as active, and as goofy, as Mickelson’s. When he didn’t make the season-ending TOUR Championship last August, he spent the night before the first round firing off 180 tweets over roughly four hours. Census takers are still trying to find just one person he didn’t tweet to. “I just want you to know that my life would be complete if you won a U.S. Open,â€� someone tweeted. “Mine too,â€� Mickelson responded. And so on. One of the better exchanges: Barstool Sports tweeted a photo of him swimming, with, “Since When Does Phil Mickelson Have The Body of a Greek God?â€� Replied Mickelson, who has radically altered his diet, “It’s a recent development.â€� Absent much to post about in the way of good results last season, other than his AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am victory, and in between Phiresides, his newfound obliques and legendary calves have been a popular fallback in his postings. The best of these may have come last September, when Brady was battling a calf injury and declared limited for a New England Patriots practice. Mickelson jumped all over it. “I’m on standby for a flight to Boston,â€� he tweeted. “Let’s not let inadequate calves hold us back.â€� Replied Brady: “The Phil Mickelson Method … for jacked calves? Sign me up.â€� Younger players are among those who have watched with an air of bemusement. “He’s kind of fallen in love with it,â€� Fowler says. “People love the tips and things like that, the Phireside stuff. Not sure how I feel about the name; it’s kind of a little corny. But he’s having fun with it, and I think people are getting to see his character and his playfulness. It’s definitely entertaining.â€� Adds Thomas, a friend who lost a playoff to Mickelson at the 2018 World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship, “He’s not faking anything. He’s just being himself. People are like, ‘It’s not him,’ but I’m like, ‘Trust me, it’s him. It’s Phil.’ He’s not acting any differently. People are just seeing the side that we see every week.â€� The Phuture of Phireside Now that he’s a year and a half into it, Mickelson the social media maven has learned a few things, and has a good idea where he wants to go next. “It’s really struck me what a unique opportunity this is to engage and develop a much closer, more emotional relationship with the fans,â€� he says. “And so I want to continue to do that but really from my angle as opposed to a younger guy. “Me being somebody that’s almost 50 now,â€� he continues, “I want to use it as a way of telling the stories that have already happened that people haven’t heard about as opposed to posting what’s going on in the here and now.â€� He plans on having some caddies on the Phireside, “because they have some unique stories,â€� he says. But, he adds, he’s leery of his brother. Tim Mickelson once told this reporter a story about playing poker with Phil on a houseboat; Phil stacked the deck when Tim went to the bathroom and never told him. Perhaps wisely, Phil seems to have opted not to open himself up to further such yarns. Asked if he would go on the show, Fowler says, “I would have to figure out what we’d talk about.â€� Mickelson’s second interview with Thomas, recorded in the locker room at the BMW Championship last fall, hasn’t aired yet. “He just asked if you want to do a story,â€� Thomas says of how it all came to be. “And I brought a couple up and he was like, ‘Yeah, it sounds good.’â€� Could he see himself doing so much social media at 50? Thomas shakes his head. “I don’t think enough people will care what I’ll think at that age,â€� he says with a laugh. “But Phil will always be relevant.â€�

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Column: Astros get the punishment, Dodgers pay the priceColumn: Astros get the punishment, Dodgers pay the price

January 14, 2020January 14, 2020| 8:43

Alex Cora will soon join him in the unemployment line, and it’s hard to believe anyone will ever give him another job that involves being a leader of men. The punishments – technically Cora’s is still to come – fit the crime, and for that baseball commissioner Rob Manfred deserves a pat on the back.

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It’s halftime in the NBA, and time to look at some trendsIt’s halftime in the NBA, and time to look at some trends

January 14, 2020January 14, 2020| 7:45

The midway point of the NBA regular season arrives this week — there are 1,230 games between October and April, and after Thursday night’s slate goes into the books 618 games will have been played with 612 left to go. The league records for 3-pointers made and attempted are going to get broken for

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Sleeper Picks: The American ExpressSleeper Picks: The American Express

January 14, 2020January 14, 2020| 7:00

Danny Lee … Sometimes an eye with experience in understanding a generalized value over growing popularity of a sharper focus is more valuable this early in a season. While his six starts in 2019-20 isn’t below average, the fact that his best two results by far occurred in tournaments without ShotLink presents an example as to why a grain of salt often is required when reviewing everyone in depth before relying on any one statistic. For example, of the 236 golfers who qualify to be ranked officially in the stats, he’s 218th in Strokes Gained: Putting, but neither his solo second at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES nor his T10 at The ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP contribute to measured data because ShotLink wasn’t active. Consider that at Nine Bridges, he led the field in both scrambling and fewest putts per round, ranked second in one-putt percentage and placed T8 in putts per GIR. Overall in his six starts, he’s 38th in scrambling, 44th in fewest putts per round, 48th in one-putt percentage and 53rd in putts per GIR, stats influenced by every tournament, not just those with ShotLink. Peter Malnati … Who better than one of the best putters on the PGA TOUR to deserve elevated expectations in a putting contest cloaked by a shootout? Not only did he finished T18 at The American Express last year, but last week’s T12 at Waialae was his best showing in individual competition on TOUR in four years. He paced the Sony field in one-putt percentage and fewest putts per round. Overall this season, he’s 13th in Strokes Gained: Putting, 16th in putting: birdies-or-better and second in both one-putt percentage and fewest putts per round. Maverick McNealy … On the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019, he cruised through on the strength of confident putting. Ranked fifth on the circuit in putts per GIR and eighth in putting: birdies-or-better. It’s a skill that he’s taken to the PGA TOUR where the rookie is 45th in Strokes Gained: Putting, T21 in one-putt percentage and 10th in putting: birdies-or-better. It’s a bonus that the 24-year-old slots T28 in par-5 scoring average. After opening the season with a pair of missed cuts, he walked off the fall with six consecutive cuts made that included a season-best T17 in Houston. Bronson Burgoon … With only 41 cuts made in a career 78 PGA TOUR starts as a professional and just five top 10s to his name, he’s not a talent to whom you often point to contend. Yet, he’s figured it out with timely precision to have retained enough status to remain on the radar. If you were going to settle on a commonality as to why he’s landed on leaderboards, you’re going to find numerous occasions that yield low scores. It’s manifested itself already thrice this season with one top 10 among a trio of top 20s. The success is supported by a potent putter. Currently 18th on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Putting, T7 in one-putt percentage and sixth in putting: birdies-or-better. Seung-Yul Noh … Making his first PGA TOUR start since the inaugural edition of THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES in October of 2017. He then spent nearly two years fulfilling his military conscription in his native South Korea before returning to competition for a pair of starts in his homeland last fall. The latter resulted a T6 at the Genesis Championship (won by Sungjae Im). Noh, who modified his ball flight to a fade during his time away, is 28 years of age and one year younger than when fellow countryman Sangmoon Bae began his military assignment in 2015, so there’s reason to believe that time is on Noh’s side whereas Bae struggled mightily in his return to the PGA TOUR. Armed with a full season’s worth of starts via a status extension (in the Major Medical category), Noh also can tap into the positive experience of a T17 in 2016 when the current rotation of course first hosted The American Express. NOTE: Sleeper is a relative term, so Rob uses unofficial criteria to determine who qualifies. Each of the following usually is determined to be ineligible for this weekly staple: Winners of the tournament on the current host course; winners in the same season; recent major champions; top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking; recent participants of team competitions.

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Lillard has 30 and Portland beats Charlotte 115-112Lillard has 30 and Portland beats Charlotte 115-112

January 14, 2020January 14, 2020| 6:46

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — ��� Damian Lillard scored 30 points, including a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from nearly halfcourt to end the third quarter, and the Portland Trail Blazers handed the Charlotte Hornets their fifth straight loss with a 115-112 victory on Monday night. Anthony Tolliver had a season-high

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Gordon’s late magic lifts Orlando past Sacramento, 114-112Gordon’s late magic lifts Orlando past Sacramento, 114-112

January 14, 2020January 14, 2020| 6:37

Aaron Gordon made a three-point play with 1.1 seconds remaining, and the Orlando Magic beat the Sacramento Kings 114-112 on Monday night. Gordon finished with 19 points and nine rebounds in his return to Orlando’s lineup after missing one game with calf tightness. Nikola Vucevic had 26 points and

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