Watch Kevin Durant watch Angels pitcher puke (video)Watch Kevin Durant watch Angels pitcher puke (video)
Kevin Durant went to a baseball game and become a meme.
Day: June 29, 2021
Skaggs’ family sues Angels, former employeesSkaggs’ family sues Angels, former employees
The family of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs filed two lawsuits against the club and two former employees, claiming negligence over his drug-related death two years ago, attorneys announced Tuesday morning.
U.K. bettor hits $1.36M parlay on English OT winU.K. bettor hits $1.36M parlay on English OT win
A bettor in London picked the winners of two Euro 2020 soccer matches and four golf tournaments — including Harris English, who won the Travelers Championship after an eight-hole playoff — to pocket $1.36 million off a $15 bet.
Darius Days returning to LSU for senior seasonDarius Days returning to LSU for senior season
Forward Darius Days is returning to LSU for his senior season after initially exploring his opportunity to turn pro.
The biggest blasts from Bryson DeChambeau’s Rocket Mortgage Classic winThe biggest blasts from Bryson DeChambeau’s Rocket Mortgage Classic win
The 2020 Rocket Mortgage Classic was a landmark meeting of generational differences within the sport of golf. The pre-tournament favorite, Bryson DeChambeau, was newly armed with well, new arms, and lightning-quick swing speed to match. The golf course, a Donald Ross design that opened in the 19th century, was about to be played in a manner not plausibly foreseen by Ross or his contemporaries. RELATED: Twenty First Group | A history of ‘bomb and gouge’ Before last year’s opening round, DeChambeau issued a preemptive apology to the course designer, preparing to rip drives that soared beyond the deterrents and hazards engineered more than a century earlier. “I think there’s a lot of bunkers that are around like 290 (yards), so hopefully I’ll be able to clear those and take those out of play,” said DeChambeau. “So, sorry, Mr. Ross, but, you know, it is what it is.” Bryson proceeded to make 27 birdies and an eagle, and leave with his first win since bulking up. It was a victory that validated his radical transformation and set the stage for his first major triumph. At last year’s Rocket Mortgage Classic, the entire field hit six drives that were worth half-a-stroke or more Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. DeChambeau hit half of them. His average driving distance (on the two official measured holes) was more than 350 yards, the longest in PGA TOUR history by a tournament winner. Let’s examine the five most valuable tee shots DeChambeau hit that week in Michigan: 5. Second round, No. 7 Distance hit: 336 yards Strokes Gained: +0.43 At a mere 336 yards, DeChambeau must have dialed it back a bit on this tee ball. He had just birdied the sixth to move to 10 under for the week, and celebrated with a drive of 336 yards into the right-middle portion of the fairway. Though put in ideal position to attack this par-5, this would wind up being one of the few missed opportunities for the week for DeChambeau, as he ultimately walked off the green with par. For the tournament, DeChambeau hit 38 drives of 330 yards or more. Not only was that 15 more than any other player, only four individuals hit even half as many drives that far for the week. 4. First round, No. 13 Distance hit: 354 yards Strokes Gained: +0.48 Only the second-most-valuable drive of his opening round, this nuclear blast at 13 went 354 yards right down the middle. DeChambeau would get up-and-down from about 27 yards away and move to 3 under on his day. For the entire hole, DeChambeau gained 0.93 strokes on the field – 52% of that value came from the tee shot. By Strokes Gained, this was by far the most valuable drive hit by anyone in the field on the 13th hole for the week. 3. Third round, No. 1 Distance hit: 364 yards Strokes Gained: +0.54 While most humans are pining for a breakfast ball to begin their Saturday round of golf, DeChambeau had other things in mind. Bryson unloaded on a 364-yard drive down the middle to begin his third round and capitalized with birdie. DeChambeau had less than 25 yards left to the flag after his tee shot. This wound up as the longest drive of the week at the opening hole at Detroit Golf Club, narrowly beating DeChambeau’s encore on this hole the next day. More than 84% of the strokes he gained against the field on that hole came from his tee shot. 2. Final round, No. 7 Distance hit: 366 yards Strokes Gained: +0.57 After three birdies in his opening six holes Sunday, DeChambeau blasted a tee shot at the seventh that went 22 yards further than any other player in the final round. This left DeChambeau with less than 190 yards to the center of the green, putting him in position to make his fourth birdie of the day – which he did. This was one of 16 drives of 350 yards or longer hit by DeChambeau for the week. On his own, DeChambeau accounted for 21% of the drives 350 or longer by the field hit over the entirety of the tournament. 1. First round, No. 14 Distance hit: 376 yards Strokes Gained: +0.58 This unholy mauling of a tee shot was the longest of the week for DeChambeau among those that wound up in the fairway. It was also the longest hit all week at 14. His two consecutive tee shots in the opening round at 13 and 14 were worth a combined total of more than one full Stroke Gained over the field. Their combined distance was 730 yards. DeChambeau’s approach left him about 35 feet for eagle. His made putt ended up being worth twice as much (by Strokes Gained) as his drive, illustrating a significant point about DeChambeau’s success that week. Even with his dominant performance off the tee, DeChambeau gained more strokes on the field with his putter that week (+7.83) than with his driver (+6.67). That combination of Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and Strokes Gained: Putting was the highest of any winner on the PGA TOUR all season long. Because of how good his tee shots and putting were, DeChambeau was able to win that week with negative Strokes Gained: Approach, something only 3.6% of PGA TOUR winners in the ShotLink era (since 2004) can claim. You know, it is what it is.
Source: Jays get reliever Cimber from MarlinsSource: Jays get reliever Cimber from Marlins
The Blue Jays bolstered their bullpen on Tuesday, acquiring reliever Adam Cimber in a four-player trade with the Marlins.
How paddle boarding helped Chris Kirk become a winnerHow paddle boarding helped Chris Kirk become a winner
Those early tee times notwithstanding, Chris Kirk says he’s not a morning person. But when he lived on St. Simon’s Island in southeastern Georgia, one of his favorite things to do was to get up and go paddle boarding at sunrise. That’s when the Atlantic Ocean was the calmest. Kirk would paddle out into the blue-green water, the morning’s light shimmering on its glassy surface, for 30 or 40 minutes. Sometimes he’d sit down or stretch out on the board, alone in his thoughts. “I think it has some similarities to being on the driving range by yourself when you’re a kid just kind of working, trying to get something just right,” Kirk says. “You feel like you’re just kind of standing on the water, walking on water a little bit. Just being out where you could barely see the shoreline with nobody around, it was so kind of peaceful and calming.” An added benefit? It was also good exercise for the lanky Georgian who admits that he isn’t exactly the kind of gym rat some PGA TOUR players are. Particularly if the waves were up when Kirk returned to shore, he could get in a little surfing, too. “I struggle with that,” the 6-foot-3, 175-pounder admits with a smile. “… I just really don’t enjoy working out that much. But being able to do something like paddle boarding was really a great release.” Kirk now lives on a 40-acre retreat outside Athens, not far from the University of Georgia where he was a member of the Bulldogs’ 2005 NCAA title team and winner of the 2007 Ben Hogan Award. His paddle boards are stored at the home of his parents, who live on a lake. Someday, though, he hopes to the sunrise calls him back to the ocean. Kirk actually started paddle boarding on something of a whim. He missed the cut at the 2010 Melwood Prince George’s County Open in College Park, Md., on what is now known as the Korn Ferry Tour and was headed home, looking for something to pass the time. Kirk called Mac Barnhart, who was his agent at the time, and asked him what he knew about paddle boarding. He told him he wanted to try it. So, the next day, the two men drove to Jacksonville Beach, Florida and rented a couple of boards. Suffice it to say, they were hooked. Kirk and Barnhart both ended up buying paddle boards that day and bringing them home to St. Simon’s Island. Turns out, another friend and local icon, World Golf Hall of Famer Davis Love III, already had one – but he hadn’t quite caught the bug yet. “We were talking to him, saying this is awesome, you’ve got to try it,” Kirk recalls. “And he’s like, oh yeah, I have one of those. And we’re like, of course you do. “So, the three of us went out a ton, Mac and Davis and I, and we’d go out in the mornings. Mac and Davis even opened a paddleboard shop for a little while. And then it became this whole huge thing. And it all came from me missing the cut and wanting to do something on the weekend.” The story gets even better, too. After essentially spending the better part of next week on his paddle board, Kirk went to Arkansas and won the Fort Smith Classic – his first victory as a pro. He would go on to win again that summer and finish second on the Korn Ferry Tour money list to lock up his PGA TOUR card. “We paddled every day for a week,” Kirk said with a grin. “And then I went and won the tournament the next week. So, we’re, like, this is the answer to being a professional golfer.” Kirk, a four-time winner on TOUR, was a quick study. He learned early on to jump off when he felt like he was going to fall rather than risk a collision with the board. “Learning on relatively flat waters is a very easy,” Kirk says. “I don’t know why anyone ever gets on a kayak ever. It’s so much better. It’s kind of the same thing. You can go in and out wherever you want, but I mean, a kayak kills my back and wears out your arms. “On a paddleboard you’re using your whole body standing up and you can see everything better. It’s awesome.” With the exception of a lightning scare when he was out on the water one day, Kirk hasn’t had any mishaps on the paddle board. He can’t say the same about skim boards, though. After the pro-am at the (Korn Ferry) Tour Championship at Daniel Island later that year, Kirk was in the ocean for a little R&R and lost his balance on a skim board. The result was an avulsion fracture of a bone at the base of his left thumb that sidelined him for several months. “So yeah, no more skim boarding,” Kirk says. These days, Kirk’s three energetic young sons – aged 3, 7 and 9 – keep him busy. The oldest, Sawyer, is “just obsessed” with baseball, he says. The middle child, Foster, likes baseball, too, but he also enjoys fishing and shooting his bolt-action single-shot .22 rifle at the range on the family’s property. The baby of the family, Wilder, is usually up for anything but he particularly like wrestling with his dad and riding the trails in Kirk’s 1976 Bronco. Balancing their “me and dad time” with his kids is all-important these days. When they’re older, though, don’t be surprised if Kirk and his family get back to St. Simon’s Island on a more regular basis, maybe even buying a second home there. “We moved away really for being closer to family and to make travel easier for me,” Kirk says. “But we still love it. I wish we got down there more often than we do, and we talk about it all the time.” And when that happens, Kirk might have to buy some more paddle boards.
Opposing high school coaches on New York Jets’ Zach Wilson: ‘He can really sling it down the field’Opposing high school coaches on New York Jets’ Zach Wilson: ‘He can really sling it down the field’
Who knew the former Corner Canyon quarterback would be drafted No. 2 overall? Five coaches from rival Utah schools reveal to ESPN what they saw then.
Expert Picks: Rocket Mortgage ClassicExpert Picks: Rocket Mortgage Classic
How it works: Each week, our experts from PGATOUR.COM will make their selections in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf. Each lineup consists of four starters and two bench players that can be rotated after each round. Adding to the challenge is that every golfer can be used only three times per each of four Segments. The first fantasy golf game to utilize live ShotLink data, PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf allows you to see scores update live during competition. Aside from the experts below, Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton breaks down the field at this year’s Travelers Championship in this week’s edition of the Power Rankings. For more fantasy, check out Rookie Watch, Qualifiers and Reshuffle. THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN OUR EXPERTS? The PGA TOUR Experts league is once again open to the public. You can play our free fantasy game and see how you measure up against our experts below. Joining the league is simple. Just click here to sign up or log in. Once you create your team, click the “Leagues” tab and search for “PGA TOUR Experts.” After that? Pick your players and start talking smack. Want to represent the fans against our experts? SEASON SEGMENT
Baker Mayfield lands in one analysts top 10 Quarterbacks in the NFLBaker Mayfield lands in one analysts top 10 Quarterbacks in the NFL
Former Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Baker Mayfield ranked as a top 10 quarterback.