Patrick Mahomes didn’t predict the Chiefs would go 20-0. The star quarterback simply answered a question about which record he would like to break. What NFL player wouldn’t want to go undefeated, especially considering so few have accomplished that during the Super Bowl era? “To me, records don’t mean anything unless you’re winning that last [more]
Dan Wetzel, Pete Thamel and SI’s Pat Forde look at the legacy of Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who plans to retire after one more season.
Xander Schauffele is shifting his putting style to the armlock method despite thinking it should be banned. “…if everyone else is going to use it and I feel like they have a bigger advantage, I may as well do the same.”
The second-round playoff series between Boston and New York shifts to the Islanders’ home ice for a pivotal Game 3 on Thursday night.
DUBLIN, Ohio – Early pace-setters Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele both found form in the opening round of the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide after changing putters pre-tournament. Morikawa’s 6-under 66 was the best of a weather interrupted opening round with Schauffele not far behind following a 68. They needed just 27 and 28 putts respectively with their new weapons. It was a story of back to the future for Morikawa. Despite winning the 2020 Workday Charity Open (a one-off event at Muirfield Village the week before the Memorial Tournament held due to the pandemic) with a blade style putter, the 24-year-old had since switched to a mallet style FCG TaylorMade putter. The mallet, combined with a saw grip, helped him claim the World Golf Championships – Workday Championship at The Concession earlier this season. But Morikawa wanted a more comfortable mindset and switched back. “The mallet, once in a while I just have a hard time setting it up and setting it down. And the best putters they’re never fidgeting with their putter, they just put it down and they know where they’re aiming, they know what it’s doing,” Morikawa explained. “So it’s a new putter, but it’s the same blade I used actually last year at this tournament, I used it a lot coming out of college. It’s just got a SuperStroke grip on, (and) a little different loft. “Overall, it’s a putter that I’ve used before, I feel comfortable with, I just wanted to go back to a blade because I’ve putted with a blade my entire life and why not just go back and figure out the things that I’ve been working on and forget about the stroke, forget about the putter, just try and make the putt.” While Morikawa is known to tinker with his putting the change was a little more surprising coming from Schauffele who ranked ninth on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Putting leading into the tournament. But Schauffele made a switch none-the-less, employing an arm-lock version of his regular putter as he looks to get even more advantage on the greens. Interestingly enough the four-time TOUR winner believes the putters should be banned. “My putting coach, my whole team honestly, we’re very against change and I had to see what the craze was about. I do feel funny, obviously being a top-10 putter on TOUR, switching putters or the style of putting. (But) it’s a distinct advantage,” Schauffele said. “I am for banning the armlock putters, but if everyone else is going to use it and I feel like they have a bigger advantage, I may as well do the same.” Schauffele said he’s got his sights on being the best putter on TOUR, this season that spot is currently held by South African Louis Oosthuizen. Leading into this week Oosthuizen gained +0.996 strokes a round putting while Schauffele sat at +0.737. “I know how good it can be and I think you still have to read putts and get the speed down correctly, but I’m in a very similar setup compared to my old putter and I know I can putt with a shorter putter, so I figured if I can get an advantage on the greens and maybe get to first in putting, that would be something special. So I’m giving it a go,” he added. “It’s better, it’s easier. It’s more consistent. My coach and I work a lot in San Diego on start lines and making sure the ball’s doing what we think it’s doing. And the fact that it’s anchored to your arm, you can flinch in your hands, but you can’t flinch your entire left arm, so that’s the process behind that.” The rules of golf outlawed anchoring to the body in 2016 but Schauffele thinks the armlock style should be included in that ban. “Because it takes the stress of putting out of the game. Obviously hitting shots and chipping and all kinds of stuff are difficult, but your putts are what give you the score on the card,” he said. “And so it’s ruined people’s careers and it’s helped people’s careers. I think putting is an art in our game and when you can lock it into your arm or anchor it to your body, it kind of gets rid of that.”
Michigan head coach Juwan Howard hosted four-star 2022 Ty Rodgers on a visit this week. Here’s what we’ve picked up …
Buccaneers assistant head coach/run game coordinator Harold Goodwin offered his support to Eugene Chung, noting that the “process has been pretty hard” for minority coaching candidates in the NFL.
Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti is making a $4 million gift in former general manager Ozzie Newsome’s name to Maryland’s historically Black colleges and universities.
DUBLIN, Ohio – Rickie Fowler has long set fashion trends on the golf course so seeing him in slick sunglasses during an overcast opening round of the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide was not overly surprising. RELATED: Fowler debuts patriotic golf ball at Muirfield But the five-time PGA TOUR winner revealed his often-imitated fashion style was not the primary reason for wearing the glasses at Muirfield Village through a rainy Thursday. The glasses are in fact prescription and have been a huge help as Fowler continues his climb out of an on-course slump. “I always struggled with seeing more than say 150 yards and little things far away,” Fowler revealed after a tidy 3-under 69 to open the tournament. “It’s not enough to where I really wanted to try going to Lasik or anything like that. I’ve always been able to see up close fine, I don’t have any problem with that. The only time I start to struggle with some depth perception is in low light situations, so early morning or as the sun’s going down. And so I just wanted to try another option before going to Lasik down the road.” Fowler is coming off a T8 at the PGA Championship, where he also had the glasses, his first top-10 on TOUR since January of 2020. The eyewear has been another missing piece of the puzzle as he fought through swing changes. The 32-year-old had experimented with eyewear in the past at home but his swing had been so rapid that glasses would not stay in place. With his new more measured swing things have changed. “I always felt that with the nose piece, with how much I move sometimes in the swing it would get in the way and I would lose sight of the ball, so I didn’t like glasses forever,” Fowler explained. “But now that things have been cleaned up and I swing a little bit more within myself, that gave me the opportunity to try standard sunglasses without prescription and I saw that I wasn’t squinting as much, I wasn’t stressing my eyes as much, especially with it being bright out too, especially in Florida. “So I said, shoot, why don’t we try prescription. Now I can actually see the ball land.” Fowler finished runner up at Muirfield Village in his first appearance in 2010 and again in 2017. At 126th in the FedExCup and 101st in the world rankings he is also chasing a kick up the season long standings and a berth in the U.S. Open at his hometown Torrey Pines from June 17-20. Fowler must forge his way inside the world top 60 via his Muirfield Village result or get through 36-hole final qualifying on Monday – a quest he wasn’t concerned about. “I’ve done it before, been there a handful of times… it’s been a quite a few years, but no, it wasn’t something I was like necessarily bummed out about, I put myself in this position. So we got a tee time on Monday, let’s go qualify and get our spot at Torrey Pines,” Fowler, who got through qualifying twice as an amateur said. “The biggest thing that I learned from those 36-hole days is don’t try and press it. Kind of you’re playing a little bit more conservatively and just kind of keep moving forward. I was talking with a couple of these guys yesterday, just kind of saying, don’t trip over your shoelaces, you don’t have to do anything super special, just go play golf and keep moving forward.”
Because of the way the Jazz handled incidents involving racist and vulgar taunts directed at him and his wife, the father of Grizzlies star Ja Morant said he’d be pulling for the Jazz for the rest of the playoffs.
