The NBA and NBPA are running short on time to agree on starting the season before Christmas, and the league fears a January start could cost it up to $1 billion in revenue losses next season and beyond, sources told ESPN.
In an appearance on LeBron James’ talk show “The Shop,” former President Barack Obama detailed the phone call with Chris Paul and James that helped save the NBA’s season in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
John Gasaway breaks down the biggest concerns standing in the way of each of the top men’s college basketball teams.
In June, Georgia Tech men’s basketball assistant Eric Reveno started a campaign urging the NCAA to designate Election Day as a day off from all athletic activities. Soon, other coaches joined in the push to get college athletes educated on voting.
When will the season start? Will it be a full 82 games? Will there be daily COVID-19 testing? Bubbles? We answer those questions and many more.
The Bills built their divisional lead over the Patriots, while Jimmy Garoppolo had a brutal day. Let’s overreact to Week 8.
HOUSTON - The sun had set but Anthony Rector was one of several people in line at Houston's Memorial Park. It is one of the largest recreational areas in the country, offering jogging and cycling trails, tennis courts and baseball fields, but on this Tuesday evening, people were waiting to use the large metal machine that dispenses balls for Memorial Park's lighted driving range. All 80 hitting stalls on the range's two-story structure were occupied. Rector learned the game at Memorial Park when he was about 7, taking lessons from his grandfather, Freddie Murrell. A cook and a caddie at local country clubs, Murrell, like many Houstonians, played his golf at Memorial Park. The course hosts some 60,000 rounds per year thanks to its affordability, accessibility and convenient location just a few miles from downtown. "He used to tell me about Jimmy Demaret and all those guys," Rector said. "He used to caddie for a lot of those guys. He gave me some clubs and we cut them down a little bit. He taught me how to navigate the course. Even though I didn't have the power, he wanted to stress that I build a good swing." Memorial Park, the new host course for this week's Vivint Houston Open, is one of just two municipal courses on this season's schedule, along with San Diego's Torrey Pines (Farmers Insurance Open). That Southern California course is known for its scenic clifftop vistas, but Memorial Park showcases the city skyline, a testament to its location in the midst of this metropolis. At 1,500 acres, it's almost double the size of New York City's Central Park. Approximately 4 million Houstonians visit each year. Some of the park's jogging trails ring the course, undoubtedly providing some people their first glimpse of the game. Renovated by architect Tom Doak, the course is hosting a PGA TOUR event for the first time since 1963 and will bring the tournament from the suburbs back to the city center. The $34 million renovation, which was funded by the Astros Golf Foundation, also included the two-story driving range, a First Tee facility and short course, plus a STEM learning facility. It still brings the old regulars. Rector played baseball for coach Ray Knoblauch, father of future MLB All-Star Chuck Knoblauch, at local powerhouse Bellaire High School. Chuck was the team's bat boy. After high school, Rector accepted a baseball scholarship at Fresno State. He stayed in California for four decades but recently returned to Texas to be near his aging mother. On this Tuesday evening at Memorial Park, he was back where he learned the game decades earlier. A lot had changed, but so much has remained the same. As one local put it, the refurbished course remains the "heart and soul" of Houston golf. That much was evident on a recent visit. Players in collared shirts pounded golf balls with well-timed swings, the bags of their college and high school teams sitting just a few feet behind them. Some clipped phones to the driving range's metal railing so they could film their action and analyze it. Others wore tank tops and T-shirts as they took the timid swings of a novice golfer and well-meaning friends offered advice. A man watched two young boys hit balls as a third sat nearby, reading a book. A mother on her laptop squeezed in some work while her child took a group lesson on the putting green. "Most everybody who plays golf in the city of Houston comes through here," said Memorial Park regular Ray Anderson. Indeed, one report named Houston the most diverse city in America, and however you choose to measure diversity, the golfers at Memorial Park represent a wide spectrum. They always have. "That diversity just flows onto the course," said Steve Trautwein, another Memorial Park regular. "You never knew who you were going to be paired with. Lawyers, doctors, professors. You get plumbers, landscapers, grandfathers and grandsons, mothers and daughters. It's a muni. It's accessible. It doesn't have that exclusivity that golf gets a bad name for." Weekday greens fees are just $30, while seniors and juniors play for $15 and $10, respectively. The peak rate is $38. Players used to arrive at 2 a.m. on weekends to put their name on a list for one of the early tee times, which were doled out on a first-come, first-served basis. "If you were here at 2:05, you were the fourth group out. (The tee times) would be gone by 2:30," said Anderson. Who are the players? Everyone and anyone. Demaret, a World Golf Hall of Famer and three-time Masters champion, grew up as one of nine kids in a poor family. He caddied at Memorial Park as a kid. Dave Marr, winner of the 1965 PGA Championship, got his start at Memorial Park, as well. They weren't the only big names to pass through, however. "All of the touring pros, sports writers, gamblers and celebrities seemed to make Memorial their first stop when they hit Houston," Bernie Riviere wrote in the book, "Memories of Memorial." Demaret, Byron Nelson, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby played a fundraiser there during World War II. Major winners Tommy Bolt and Jackie Burke were often at Memorial Park, as well. Even today, NBA Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler can be seen at Memorial Park, as well as Houston Astros players like Alex Bregman and Josh Reddick. The everyday players are the lifeblood of the course, however. Back in the day, it was characters like Red Nose, Pie Face, Judge Peyton, Skippy Green, Runt Young and Spiz Berg, a saxophone player who was missing part of his index finger. Legend has it that a TOUR player, after being beaten soundly by some of the locals, called his partner for the next day's match to give this warning: "I've got a saxophone player, a garbage man and a carpenter playing me and these guys are amateurs in name only." TOUR pros may be playing Memorial Park this week, but the course belongs to the people of Houston.
Daniel Ricciardo was surprised to be joined by race winner Lewis Hamilton in a celebratory podium champagne ‘shoey’ on Sunday after the Australian finished third in Sunday’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
At times it was wild and windy, and in the end a worthy winner returned to the top of a leaderboard for the first time in a long time. Here are some storylines you might have missed as Brian Gay needed an extra hole to get the job done in the Bermuda Championship. 1. Gay proves accuracy can still be winning factor on TOUR Brian Gay can't hit the long bomb. He knows it. He's 48, long away from his prime strength years. But he's still cunning. And usually very accurate. And while a surge towards prodigious distance is happening in the world of golf, Gay showed that accuracy and solid nerves on the right course at the right time can very much still prevail in this sport. Gay birdied the final hole in regulation to put a bow on a final round 7-under 64 and then stood up and birdied the hole again in a sudden death playoff to capture a fifth career win, but first since 2013. With Stewart Cink (Safeway Open) and Sergio Garcia (Sanderson Farms Championship) recently proving wins aren't exclusive to the young, fit and strong on the PGA TOUR, Gay felt energized coming to Bermuda where he'd been third a year prior. Despite tough winds through most of the tournament, Gay ranked fourth in driving accuracy and on Sunday hit 16 of 18 greens in regulation as he put on a clinic to overcome the two-shot deficit he started with in the final round. Outdriven in the playoff, he applied pressure with a great wedge to 15-feet only to see Wyndham Clark hit his approach inside 10 feet. Gay wasn't deterred - sinking his birdie putt in the heart of the cup to reapply the pressure. Clark tried to ram his effort in to match but it fell low and the trophy was won. Now instead of counting the days until PGA TOUR Champions status, Gay is mapping out a few more years of big TOUR starts including THE PLAYERS Championship, Sentry Tournament of Champions and the Masters. Get more on a brilliant win here. 2. Zalatoris completes mission one; next missions begin It was all but a formality that Will Zalatoris would claim Special Temporary Membership on the PGA TOUR after an incredible run of golf lately. The Korn Ferry Tour points leader needed to make it to the weekend to ensure he can accept an unlimited amount of sponsor invites this season and he impressed with a T16 finish in Bermuda. Now the focus turns to whether or not he will earn enough non-member points this season to secure playing privileges into next season. This is also basically a formality as with 334 of those already on his plate it would take a serious dip in form for him to fall outside whatever mark the 125th player in the FedExCup sets. As it stands right now, Zalatoris would be 16th on the current FedExCup list if he was eligible, slotting in right ahead of Jon Rahm. And even if he were to falter, chances are he's not going to drop 26 slots on the KFT list either. So the real focus actually shifts to whether he can find a way to win on the PGA TOUR this season, thus becoming eligible for the Playoffs. And whether he can continue his climb up the world rankings before year end. At 57th, Zalatoris could work his way into the 2021 Masters should he get inside the top 50 on Dec. 31. 3. Off the Schnied It had been a lean experience for Ollie Schniederjans in PGA TOUR events. The once-celebrated amateur has been an afterthought amongst a plethora of young talent bursting on the TOUR scene in the last few seasons, thanks mainly to a 2018-19 season of woe that ended at 180th in the FedExCup. Prior to his third place finish this week in Bermuda, Schniederjans’ last 10 TOUR starts had provided eight missed cuts - including in Bermuda a year ago - and a best finish of T47. This week provided his first top-10 since August of 2018 when he was fifth at the Barracuda Championship. But time back on the Korn Ferry TOUR has allowed him to work things out away from the spotlight. And perhaps the arrival of his brother in the Bermuda field was the little competitive spark the sponsor invite needed. The result brings with it another start on TOUR this week at the Vivint Houston Open where he hopes to prove, as was once touted almost as an afterthought, he rightfully belongs. 4. Wounded Clark can take heart Losing a playoff always hurts and Wyndham Clark was certainly far from pleased when he missed three critical putts during the final two holes in regulation and during the playoff. "I’m pretty bummed. Obviously, I would have liked to have won. I played so good, just had a little mishap on 16 and 17 and then really didn’t make those two putts on 18," he said in the immediate aftermath. "I played great. It was a great tournament. Obviously I’m disappointed. I had chances, I just didn’t capitalize." Hopefully Clark can feel many positives as he continues to debrief, particularly given how he ended last season. The return to golf wasn't great for Clark, who in his nine starts after the COVID-19 break dropped from 81st to 125th in the FedExCup. He snuck into the Playoffs despite missing the cut at the Wyndham Championship, a sixth MC in those nine starts that also included a walk off WD. He's now 14th in the FedExCup this season thanks to his runner-up result, a first top-10 in just over a year and his best TOUR finish ever. 5. The Funk in the Cink brings family fun Brian Gay wasn't the only veteran having a great time in Bermuda, a paradise where family fun was the order of the week for the Cinks and the Funks. Stewart Cink, the recent winner in the season-opening Safeway Open, continued his impressive resurgence by finishing fourth. As was the case at his win, son Reagan was on the bag as his caddie. It's a partnership hard to ignore. "It’s been a couple of factors. Reagan caddying for me, my son, we have great chemistry. Half his DNA is mine and we just see things the same way on the golf course and we have really good communication out there on our shots," Cink explained. "It makes me be really decisive and committed. That certainly helps when you’re searching for ways to separate you from the competition out here where everybody is so good." Cink also tinkered with his equipment. The two factors have him second in the FedExCup just four points behind Bryson DeChambeau's lead. "I kind of lowered my spin rates through my whole bag, driver all the way down through my irons, and when we came here and we had the crazy winds there for a couple days, I think I was able to keep my ball sort of like mildly, less out of control than maybe I would have before," he added. Fred Funk had the pleasure of playing with his son Taylor in the opening two rounds and while the younger Funk didn't bring his absolute best stuff the 64-year-old produced another highlight to his impressive resume. Facing what at the time seemed a birdie or bust scenario on his final hole of the second round, the elder Funk chipped in from just off the green to become just the fourth player aged 64 or older to make the cut in a TOUR event since 1970. He joined Jack Nicklaus, Sam Snead and Tom Watson. The family celebration on the green was everything that can make this sport great and more. TOUR TOP 10 The PGA TOUR Regular Season top 10 will receive bonuses for their efforts.
The Steelers moved to 7-0, Tua Tagovailoa got his first victory and the Patriots lost to the Bills after a late Cam Newton fumble. Here’s what to know from Week 8.
