The NHL draft begins Tuesday night. Here is everything you need to know to be ready when the clock starts on Round 1, from top prospects, to teams to watch, to bold predictions.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Not until now has that old chestnut meant back-to-back PGA TOUR events. This week it's the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open at TPC Summerlin, where past Shriners champ Bryson DeChambeau will be the headliner as Vegas resident Kevin Na defends on home turf. Next week, due to some rejiggering amid the coronavirus pandemic, it's THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK - yep, also in Las Vegas. Although the double-header recalls the back-to-back tournaments at Ohio's Muirfield Village last July, it is unusual. It's also fitting, given Vegas' popularity among TOUR pros as a place to set down roots. Great weather, courses, airports, and no state income tax - what's not to like? Xander Schauffele says he'll likely be moving there. Collin Morikawa already calls it home, as do Maverick McNealy, Na, and several other world-class players. RELATED: Inside the Field | Preview the course, storylines "My coach Butch Harmon is out there in Henderson (a 20-minute drive south)," says McNealy, who finished a career-best 68th in the FedExCup last season. "And there’s actually an incredible amount of young players that are out there now. They’re calling it the Jupiter of the West - lots of PGA TOUR, LPGA, Korn Ferry, Canada, Latin America, high school players, college players. "It’s pretty motivating to be out there," McNealy adds. "Everybody is working hard, and I know there’s a lot of people out there trying to get my job, too." Las Vegas is where Tiger Woods notched the first of his 82 (and counting) TOUR wins in 1996, beating Davis Love III in a playoff. It's where Chip Beck shot 13-under 59 at the 1991 Las Vegas Invitational at Sunrise Golf Club. It's the home of UNLV, which has helped hone the skills of future TOUR pros like Adam Scott, Charley Hoffman and Ryan Moore. And, yes, it's the home base for Harmon, who advised seemingly every No. 1 player for some 30-odd years. No, Vegas isn't the center of the golf universe, but it's certainly a major planet. "Yeah, who knows what’s in that Vegas water out there," says Morikawa, who grew up in Southern California and played collegiately for Cal. "I’ll keep drinking it." If you can imagine each victory for Vegas as one of those geysers that goes off periodically at the Bellagio, then last summer was geyser-palooza. It was hard to pick a favorite. Morikawa won the Workday Charity Open in a wild playoff against Justin Thomas at Muirfield Village. Danielle Kang, who dates McNealy, won the LPGA's first two events back after a break of four-plus months, and finished T5 in a bid for three straight. "That's Tiger-esque stuff," Morikawa says. Then it was Morikawa again, driving the 16th green and winning the PGA Championship at San Francisco's TPC Harding Park to cement his status as the game's hottest new talent. That was pretty Tiger-esque in its own right. But wait! Lost amid the excitement, almost, was fellow Las Vegan David Lipsky's win at the Korn Ferry Tour's TPC San Antonio Challenge at the Canyons, July 9-12, the same weekend Morikawa was holding off Thomas at the Workday. "We were texting Saturday night," Morikawa says, "telling each other, ‘Finish this off, let’s not screw anything up and do anything stupid.' That was pretty cool. "But I think for us as professional golfers," Morikawa continues, "and what a lot of amateurs don’t realize, is where we move and why we move to certain places is to have these games and to compete against other players because that’s what keeps us going ... to keep things sharp." Schauffele, who grew up in San Diego, where he played for San Diego State University and still resides, is leaning toward buying a house in Vegas for more personal reasons. He considered Florida, Texas (Dallas) and Arizona (Scottsdale), but Vegas is just a one-hour flight from San Diego. His girlfriend's parents live there. And the lack of state income tax doesn't hurt. He is, he says, "strongly considering" a move in the not-too-distant future. California Bay Area transplant McNealy could head up the Chamber of Commerce; so smitten is he with his adopted home, he's like a human version of the famous sign: Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. "There’s two TPCs, TPC Summerlin and TPC Las Vegas," McNealy says, ticking off the benefits of this glitzy desert destination. "TPC Summerlin hosts the Shriners event every fall. Just an incredible staff and fantastic host for all the professional golfers out in Vegas. "The weather is good but not too good," he adds, "which is important, because we know what it’s like to play in heat, cold, wind, and just about every day is playable but it doesn’t mean it’s always easy." Whom does he call for a game when he's home? Fellow Stanford product Joseph Bramlett, who happens to be his roommate? Morikawa? "All of the above," he says. "There’s always a game out at TPC Summerlin. The people I see out there most are Alex and Danielle Kang, John Oda, Shintaro Ban, Aaron Wise is out there a bunch, even Scott Piercy, Ryan Moore, Kevin Na. There’s so many guys. Inbee Park is out there. "Lots of great players, and a lot of people to try and win 10 or 20 bucks off of." With a rare two-week homestand at the Shriners and CJ CUP, McNealy and company will be playing for a lot more than that, and, pocket aces, they'll be sleeping in their own beds. Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada, indeed.
When the starter welcomes Parker Coody to the first round of the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, even ardent observers might not recall his berth in the Round of 16 at the 2019 U.S. Amateur, which he made with another Coody, his twin brother Pierceson. That's right. One-eighth of the players remaining at the historic Pinehurst Resort last year were Coodys. This year, Pierceson won the Western Amateur, considered by many to be the second-biggest prize in amateur golf, and Parker won one of the top collegiate events, the Southern Highlands Collegiate. That latter accomplishment came with a special perk: a sponsor exemption into this week's PGA TOUR event. But victories in prestigious amateur events earn the attention of only a small sliver of golf fans. If the Coody name sounds familiar, it is likely for another reason. A win that came almost 50 years ago, but that is commemorated annually with the Champions Dinner at Augusta National. It was in 1971 when their grandfather won the Masters Tournament. Charles Coody, a U.S. Air Force veteran from the small West Texas town of Stamford, beat Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller by two strokes that spring in Georgia. It was the last of three titles Charles won in a career that spanned 629 starts. Charles' grandson is now making his first. And Charles' son, Kyle, who played at Texas and a couple of times on the PGA TOUR, will caddie for his son at TPC Summerlin. "I want to play as well as I can and see where I stack up," Parker said from Austin. He knows the learning curve will be steep. "I think one of the things I try to work on is having zero expectations. There's nothing else I can do." What would Charles tell his grandson now, on the eve of his PGA TOUR debut? The same thing he told Parker's brother long ago, when the family was gathered for a wedding at Barton Creek, a big resort and private club in the hills west of Austin. Parker and Pierceson were on the driving range, and Pierceson was having a hard time, as boys learning the golf swing do. Charles thought about what to do. He thought even more carefully about how to do it. "I just went over and sat down with him and encouraged him," he said. He wasn't being a retired TOUR pro with sage advice. He was being a grandfather. "All you've got to do is believe in yourself," he told Pierceson that day. He would tell Parker the same thing now. Parker intends to represent his family with integrity this week, regardless of strokes lost or gained. He is conscious of the Coody legacy but not consumed by it. It's a lineage that dates back to 1950, when Charles watched the annual invitational at Colonial Country Club, now known as the Charles Schwab Challenge. He watched Sam Snead win and was immediately mesmerized. The experience changed his life. Charles, an only child, taught himself to play on a nine-hole course that had "more rocks than grass," he said last week from his home in Abilene, where he lives in retirement with his wife of 60 years, Lynette. "But I'm just so thankful it was there." He and Don Massengale of Jacksboro, Texas, formed the core of the freshman team at TCU in the fall of 1955. Charles enlisted in the military after college, joined the TOUR in 1963 and won all three of his titles in the span of seven years, from 1964 (the Dallas Open) to the Masters. Colonial was one of his favorite stops on the PGA TOUR, right up there with the Masters. He played it for 25 consecutive years and had his chances to win. He finished second there once. "I have four or five disappointments in my PGA TOUR career, and that was one of them," Charles said. Another disappointment: No spectators were allowed at the Colonial Collegiate Classic the last week of September, which means Charles and Lynette, whom the grandchildren call "Ditty," were unable to watch Parker and Pierceson play. The Longhorns finished second. Pierceson shot 66-74-69, good for second individually. So many seconds for the Coody clan at Colonial. Parker shot even par, including a final-round 67, and finished fifth, one shot behind his brother and just three behind the winner, Oklahoma's Logan McAllister. Charles turned 83 in July. He left professional golf in 2006. By then he had made 38 starts in the Masters. In his last appearance, he brought his 6-year-old grandsons as his caddies in the Par-3 Contest, when the old champions try to reclaim a little Augusta glory, one short iron and green slope at a time. The twins got white overalls, just like the grownups. It was quite a moment for the Coody family. That Thursday, their 69-year-old grandfather labored to an opening 89. He was a stroke under par after 15 holes in the second round. A knowing crowd gathered to watch him finish. He climbed the famous hill at No. 18 to a sincere greenside reception, the kind the patrons in Augusta unfailingly give to the end of a Masters career. "That's what the boys got to see," said Kyle, who caddied for his father in the competition rounds. The Coody twins drifted from golf a couple of years later. They took up football and other team sports. Kyle, meanwhile, had begun working with Chris Como, a young teaching professional at a driving range called Golden Bear Golf Center, and then later at Gleneagles Country Club in Plano, Texas. When Parker and Pierceson decided to concentrate solely on golf, Como was there to shape them. That was long before Como had clients such as Bryson DeChambeau and Tiger Woods, a television show on Golf Channel and the Living Room Lab — a house in the Dallas suburb of Frisco retrofitted with free weights, a squat rack, high-speed cameras, force plates and launch monitors. But Como still knew good golf stock when he saw it. Both boys were committed, driven and athletic. "There's no real limit of how good they can be," Como said. The brothers excelled at Plano West High School. Parker (the oldest, by 37 minutes) won the 2017 individual title in Class 6A - the largest classification in Texas high school golf. They had interest from the best programs in the country. Kyle, their father, had played for Texas from 1983 to 1987. But he encouraged them to make their own decisions. They did just that. Parker and Pierceson, the 14th- and 25th-ranked players in the Class of 2018, respectively, chose the Longhorns. The twins made an immediate impact in Austin. Parker played in four tournaments as a freshman. Pierceson played in six. Last year, the Coodys were part of the Texas team that beat a loaded Oklahoma State squad, with Matthew Wolff and Viktor Hovland, in a thrilling semifinal match of the NCAA Championship at Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Arkansas. "It's been everything that we've wanted," Pierceson said. Texas head coach John Fields noticed something right away about the twins. They reminded him of the Byrum brothers, Curt and Tom, who both won on the PGA TOUR. The Byrums were teammates with Fields at New Mexico. "They were tough," Fields said. They also pushed each other, like Parker and Pierceson do. And when one does well, the other seems to rise too. "They seem to kind of feed off each other and each other's success," Fields said. With his father on his bag and a wider audience watching, Parker is curious to see how he stacks up. He and Kyle have made a list of goals. One of them involves embracing the experience that both Parker and Pierceson hope to enjoy as a long, prosperous career. "When we turn pro," Parker said, "we'll have it all together." This week could have ramifications for Parker's pro career. Not only could it give him good exposure, but he can earn valuable points for PGA TOUR University. Unveiled earlier this year, that program ranks players based on results in collegiate and professional events during their final two years of college golf. Players in the top five of the rankings after their fourth season earn exempt status on the Korn Ferry Tour, while Nos. 6-15 receive starts on the PGA TOUR's international circuits. Back home in Abilene, their grandparents will follow his progress from afar. In the den in their home hangs a portrait of a tall, dark-haired man in a green jacket "who even walks with a drawl," Dan Jenkins wrote for Sports Illustrated after the 1971 Masters. Coody knows he was no Nicklaus or Miller. "I just play along in living black and white," he told Jenkins. He doesn't play at all anymore. Charles had hip surgery recently and just doesn't get around the way he used to. He suffered a stroke in 2018 that diminished his eyesight, so it's hard for him to follow a ball in the air. He's asked Kyle to text him Parker's score on every hole this week at TPC Summerlin. He imagines it'll help him feel like he's walking along, witnessing each little triumph and disappointment. He will, as he often does, remember with gratitude the bonds that golf has formed in his family. Golf gave him a way to spend time with his grandsons on terms everyone understood and no one took for granted. They've played so many rounds at Diamondback National, the public course in Abilene that Charles designed and owned, that he can track the progress of Parker and Pierceson through certain basic benchmarks: the first time he saw them record a par to take the honor on the next tee, the first time they outdrove him, the first time they beat him. "I have a lot of beautiful memories of playing with the boys," Charles said. More memories will be made this week as Parker takes the next step in his promising career and advances the family's legacy.
JACKSON, Miss. - Overcoming a pair of front-nine bogeys, Sergio Garcia summons his ball-striking acumen and veteran poise to cover them up with birdies, then eagles the 14th hole and birdies the 18th for a 67 and a one-stroke victory over Peter Malnati (63). RELATED: Final leaderboard | What’s in Garcia’s bag? Here are five stories you might have missed from the Sanderson Farms Championship. 1. Garcia win not dissimilar to Cink's What's the connection between Sergio Garcia and Stewart Cink, who won the season-opening Safeway Open two weeks before Garcia's star turn at Country Club of Jackson? Both are in their 40s, right-handed, and hadn't won in a while. Look closer, though, and you're reminded that each had been mired in a dry spell after his one and only major victory, Cink the 2009 Open Championship and Garcia the 2017 Masters Tournament. Now they've both rallied to get back on track early in the new season. "I really wasn’t that frustrated because nobody was really talking to me," said Garcia, who with wife Angela had had two kids, 2-year-old Azalea and 6-month-old Enzo, since his previous PGA TOUR win. "You know, they had other guys to talk to, and I was just working hard and just trying to get better in every aspect of the game, mentally and physically, and I was just doing my own thing, trying to figure out what I needed to do, and that’s what I did." Garcia, 40, now has TOUR wins in three different decades, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. He's the 78th player to accomplish that feat, the most recent before him being - you guessed it, Cink. 2. Malnati kept perspective Although he was a past champion at the Sanderson Farms (2015), Malnati had been largely absent from the conversation for the last five years. He missed the FedExCup Playoffs last season, and barely made THE NORTHERN TRUST before finishing 118th in the FedExCup in 2019. It was more of the same in 2018, with just two top-25 finishes. No wonder he was all smiles even in finishing runner-up to Garcia. For one thing, the final-round 63 was his career low. Also, Malnati's top-10 finish gets him into the field at this week's Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas, where he'd been third alternate. Asked what he would do for an hour and 40 minutes until the leaders finished, Malnati's answer said it all: "I’m literally staying walking distance from the club," he said. "I might go hop in the pool with my boy. You thought I looked like I was having fun out there today? You should see him in the water. It’s amazing." 3. Bradley, Norlander shook off rough starts Sweden's Henrik Norlander had missed the cut in his first two starts this season after shooting opening-round 75s. The 33-year-old product of Augusta University had no such trouble at the Sanderson Farms, where he went 4 under for his last five holes for a 65 and T4 finish, four back. Norlander eagled the third and 15th holes and had three for the week, tied with Keegan Bradley for most in the field. Bradley had gotten off to a similar start this season, missing the cut at the Safeway Open and U.S. Open before contending in his first appearance in Jackson. He eagled the par-5 11th hole for the third time in four tries and shot 69 to also finish T4. 4. Villegas' game returning after tragedy This was not Camilo Villegas' first PGA TOUR start since the passing of his daughter Mia, who was just 22 months old when she died July 26 after battling tumors on her brain and spine. But with a final-round 66 and T23 finish, the four-time TOUR winner looked close to his old self. "I’m just excited to swing a golf club, man," said Villegas, who has dealt with a shoulder injury in addition to Mia's health struggles the last few years. "The last two years have been crazy to say the least, injury and then with our family situation, but like I told my wife, we can’t change the past, so we’re focusing on what’s going on right now, having a good attitude, and once again, I’m very, very happy to be swinging a golf club again." Villegas missed the cut in his previous start, at the Safeway Open. Before that? Another MC at The Honda Classic in March. Now, he says, he'll play a full fall schedule on TOUR, continuing with next week's Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas. His final-round 66 was his lowest score on TOUR since an opening-round 66 at THE NORTHERN TRUST in 2017, a span of 1,137 days. 5. McCumber, Daffue hitting new heights Tyler McCumber (69, T6, five back) posted his second career top-10 finish in his last two starts, and now he's in the unfamiliar position of fifth in the FedExCup. Granted, it's early, but this is the best stretch of golf ever for the surfer and outdoors lover from Jacksonville, Florida. Then there was MJ Daffue (pronounced Duffy), a 31-year-old from South Africa who has had a rough go of it as a professional but shot a final-round 69 for a career-best T12 finish. Daffue, who had Monday-qualified for the Sanderson Farms, now goes to the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas, where he's already got a spot in the field as a sponsor's exemption. Incredibly, Daffue, who played for Lamar University in Texas, has Monday-qualified nine times in his last 14 tries on the PGA TOUR and Korn Ferry Tour combined. He was bidding to become the first Monday-qualifier to win on TOUR since Corey Conners at the 2019 Valero Texas Open, and while that didn't happen, there were so many positives. He won't have to try and keep up his incredible Monday-qualifying streak this week in Vegas. (He would've had a hard time getting there in time, anyway.) And his T12 was his career best by a substantial margin after his T22 at the Workday Charity Open last summer. For more on Daffue's wild ride, click here. TOUR TOP 10 The regular season top 10 will receive bonuses for their efforts.
The ending of Game 3 could be best described in three words that one never dreamed could be written about the likely future NBA champions. The Lakers quit.
The ending of Game 3 could be best described in three words that one never dreamed could be written about the likely future NBA champions. The Lakers quit.
Jimmy Butler notches 40 points, 11 rebounds, and 13 assists to lead Miami in a Game 3 win against Los Angeles.
SportsPulse: To the surprise of many, the Miami Heat will not be swept by the Los Angeles Lakers and that’s in large part because of the massive effort by Jimmy Butler in Game 3 who finished with a triple-double.
Play of the Day: Anthony Davis – October 4, 2020
Dunk of the Night: Anthony Davis – October 4, 2020
