The Philadelphia 76ers are withholding $8.25 million owed to Ben Simmons – 25 percent of his contract – that he was owed Friday, and placed it into an escrow account, sources told ESPN.
Tom Brady led the Patriots to six championships. What’s it like to be named after him now that he’s a Tampa Bay Buccaneer?
Tampa Bay Buccaneers tight end Rob Gronkowski (ribs) and outside linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul (hand, shoulder) will be game-time decisions against New England Patriots on Sunday, coach Bruce Arians said.
Ravens QB Lamar Jackson returned to practice Friday and didn’t appear to favor his back, which had kept him out the past two days.
Two Buffalo Bills starters — safety Jordan Poyer (ankle) and left guard Jon Feliciano (concussion) — have been ruled out for Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans, coach Sean McDermott announced Friday.
Dolphins starting center Michael Deiter will miss Sunday’s game against the Indianapolis Colts with foot and quad injuries, coach Brian Flores said Friday.
What to watch for in every game. Bold predictions. Fantasy advice. Key stats to know. And, of course, score predictions. It’s all here for Week 4.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Midnight may have been a metaphor of sorts but judging from the raucous celebration after the United States scored a crushing 19-9 victory over Europe in the Ryder Cup, the conversation could easily have happened in real time. Over the next 24 hours, the team that Steve Stricker had created to take back the gold chalice would disband and go their separate ways. But at least one person in the United States’ team room was already looking ahead even as the champagne flowed. “We just got done with it on Sunday, and the guys said, ‘Are you going home? What are you doing?’” Davis Love III recalled. “And I go, ‘No, I’m going to Presidents Cup.’ Midnight it starts Presidents Cup year. So that’s the way our guys look at it. “They get to do it every year, they shift gears, but we are trying to build Team USA golf year-round.” True to his word, Love, who will captain the U.S. Team when it takes on the Internationals at Quail Hollow Club next year left Wisconsin and headed to Charlotte, North Carolina, for three days of Presidents Cup kickoff festivities. The biennial event will be held Sept. 19-25, 2022. Love was joined by International Captain Trevor Immelman in stops at venues downtown, as well as two evening events at Quail Hollow, a course that will be familiar to both teams after hosting the Wells Fargo Championship every year but once since. The one year it didn’t? Well, that was in 2017 when the United States’ Justin Thomas won the PGA Championship there. The two captains had a police escort as they drove their team golf carts to the NASCAR Hall of Fame where Jimmie Johnson, an 83-time winner, was a surprise tour guide, and Spectrum Center, where NBA legend Michael Jordan’s Charlotte Hornets play. At the HOF, Love and Immelman received fire-retardant suits with their names on the back, then tried their luck – very unsuccessfully – in the race simulator. “I know what my Halloween costume is now,” Immelman said. Love and Immelman also visited Bank of America Stadium and had a corn-hole chipping contest with a pair of retired Carolina Panthers, five-time Pro Bowl tight end Wesley Walls and linebacker Thomas Davis, who was the Walter Payton Man of the Year in 2014. Later they appeared almost in miniature as they looked at a gigantic mural painted on two sides of the Duke Energy Center which features, among other things, their faces and the logo of the Presidents Cup. “I got to my room yesterday, opened the curtains and I saw Davis’ head,” Immelman said, laughing. “I had to shut it straightaway. I was like, what is this? He’s already playing mind games over here.” For Love, this will mark the third time he has served as captain of a U.S. team, each time on home soil. He is 1-1 as a Ryder Cup skipper, losing in 2012 to Europe’s “Miracle at Medinah” and returning four years later to lead a victorious U.S. side at Hazeltine. Love earned the rare shot at Ryder Cup redemption thanks to the task force that was formed amidst the fallout from the Americans’ loss two years earlier in Scotland. Being given a second chance was testament to his popularity with the players. The 57-year-old Charlotte native and World Golf Hall of Famer also has been an assistant on three Presidents Cup and two Ryder Cup teams, including the one that trounced the Europeans last weekend at Whistling Straits. Love calls the most recent U.S. Team, which included eight of the top 10 players in the world and likely will form the nucleus of his team at Quail Hollow – and many more American squads to come, “really, really confident.” The average age of the Americans was 29.1, with Dustin Johnson, at 37, the old man of the team. “These guys just think they’re going to win every time they go play,” Love said. “You’ve probably been around Patrick Cantlay a little bit; he’s a very confident young man. And so is Dustin. And so is (Collin) Morikawa. He’s very quiet, but he’s a quiet 50-year-old. He’s just so steady and so good.” Love credited the experience gained in junior golf, as well as exceptional coaching and training, with the poise and determination he saw on offer last week. He said he was surprised by how many people the players had on their personal support teams. “Even though it was the pandemic, I saw more coaches at a Ryder Cup than I’ve ever seen,” Love noted. “We didn’t have that in 1993. Nobody had a coach with him. Nobody had a trainer with them. Nobody even knew what a bodywork person was. We had eight or nine people at the hotel or at the club taking care of guys. So, it’s a different generation.” To Stricker’s credit, Love said, he noticed that shift and made accommodations for it. Formal dinners and rah-rah speeches were kept to a minimum – “Maybe it makes them nervous,” Love reasoned — so the players could keep to a more normal schedule. Forget the epic ping-pong battles of yore. These guys wanted to rest so they could be at their best the next day. “I mean, literally one night there was only X-Man (Xander Schauffle) and Brooks (Koepka) still up,” Love noted. “One night it was Brooks who was the only one up, working out. “And Dustin, Sunday morning, now he’s down there at 6:30 and he’s bopping around and he goes, ‘Hey, I was in bed at nine o’clock.’ People wouldn’t believe that — if you would see Dustin Johnson, the celebrity, you would think, oh, it’s party, party, party, party, party. He does … on Sunday.” In a word, Love was impressed by the discipline he saw on the team. He remembers Cantlay coming to him and telling him he’d finished practicing and working out, but he needed to get his bodywork – a form of therapy that helps realign and reposition the body – done. That meant he’d be 45 minutes late for dinner. “That’s how disciplined they are,” Love said. Cantlay also needed three or four hours to warm up and prepare for a match. That meant 7:05 a.m. tee times were a non-starter. “It’s just different, and Steve just had it dialed in,” Love said. “Freddie and I are just sitting back, holy cow, we’re old. They do it differently than we did. “So, we have to adapt to give them what they need to get ready.” Often, team meetings, if you will, were held in a room upstairs at the Whistling Straits clubhouse while they waited for the traffic to thin. Stricker would tell the players who was practicing together and what format to play. Grab dinner in the team room and you could go to bed. “I remember (Tom) Watson coming in late one night when we were playing Pass the Pigs and Jenga and all the games that somebody brought in ‘93 and he goes, ‘You guys have to go to bed. You have to play golf tomorrow,’” Love laughed. “This is the opposite with these guys like, where is everybody? We had this big, gorgeous team room and I’d walk in and go, where is everybody? “And we knew they weren’t anywhere else because you couldn’t go anywhere else. They weren’t allowed to go. … One night, they had a family thing of people that were in the bubble. And they got to go to the little restaurant, right beside the parking garage, The Horse & Plow and say hi to their parents. And that was it, the only thing they were allowed to do. “It was a weird Ryder Cup for the veterans like us. Where’s the pomp and circumstance? But it was also weird that they were always ready to go — and they played unbelievable.” Love said he knew after the U.S. won the first session, 3-1, that the Americans would retake the Ryder Cup. It wasn’t at all like three years ago in Paris when the U.S. took the opening Four-balls by a similar margin but didn’t win a Foursomes match in the afternoon. “We had issues,” Love said of Paris. “We were jumbling pairings in afternoon. We didn’t know what we were going to do for Saturday. You know, Phil and Tiger weren’t playing good, and Patrick was not playing great. We didn’t know what was going on. “This team — all you had to do is shoot them to their tee times and they were going to roll.” Love said there will be debriefings in the coming months, as has been the case with every U.S. Team event since the task force was formed, to zero in on what worked and what didn’t. He plans to work on strengthening his relationships with some of the younger Americans – there were six rookies, for example, on this year’s team. “I got to know Patrick Cantlay so well, and I got to know X-Man a lot better,” Love said. “Morikawa, I don’t know. It’s a hard egg to crack in one week. He’s still a young, shy kid, even though he’s a major champion. So, I’ve got some work to do on getting to know guys, but Brooks and the Dustin and those guys — they’re tired of me.” The International Team, on the other hand, is at a crossroads similar to where the U.S. found itself after the 2013 Ryder Cup. It’s only win in the competition came in 1998, although the two teams famously tied in 2003 in Immelman’s native South African. Ernie Els captained the 2019 team at Royal Melbourne and the match was competitive, with the U.S. winning by just two points thanks to a comeback in Singles. He created a shield for a logo and a sense of identity for a team that draws its members from countries across the globe outside of Europe. “They’re catching up and that’s a problem,” Love said. “I’m going to remind our guys and say, ‘Hey, look what they did in Australia.’ Now they’re going to be kind of an easier place for them to play. And they’re going to have three years of preparation. “They’re not just sitting back going I hope we win. They’re planning on how they can win. … Obviously on paper, it’s pretty even. We have a slight advantage right now on paper, but you can see in the Ryder Cup, we always have a huge advantage in Ryder Cup and we lose it a lot. “So, it can happen very easily.” Love actually was serving on the PGA TOUR’s Policy Board in 1993 when former PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem proposed the matches to be played in opposite years from the Ryder Cup. Within a year, the event became reality. “Luckily it grew,” said Love, who played in the first six Presidents Cups and owns a 16-8-4 record overall. “Next thing you know, we’re in Canada and Korea and South Africa and Australia, and it’s become one of our favorite events. “Obviously we’re kind of partial to it because we win it a lot more than the Ryder Cup, but it’s incredible how much it’s grown since 1993, and it’s become a favorite of our fans and of our players, and it’s a big goal for our players to make these teams. “I’m just glad that I saw the start of it, and now I’m — hopefully this ends my Presidents Cup career. I’ve been at it a long time. … But what an honor to see it come this far since 1993.”
What to watch for in every game. Bold predictions. Fantasy advice. Key stats to know. And, of course, score predictions. It’s all here for Week 4.
Lake Buena Vista, Fla. – With his dominance in the early 1970s, Jack Nicklaus turned Walt Disney World Resort’s championship golf courses into his personal playground by winning each of the first three professional tournaments played at the iconic vacation destination, which celebrates its 50th anniversary on Oct. 1. Generations of players at every skill level would go on to experience Walt Disney World Golf, but Nicklaus will always stand out. A half-century later, as “The World’s Most Magical Celebration” begins, he can only smile when remembering his time on and off the courses. The 1971 opening of Walt Disney World Golf near Orlando coincided with a resurgence in the Golden Bear’s career, ushering in a period of brilliance that left no doubt about his status as one of the greatest golfers of his era. By age 26, Nicklaus had become the youngest golfer to win all four of the sport’s major championships. After winning his second U.S. Open title in 1967 — breaking Ben Hogan’s 72-hole record at Baltusrol in the process — Nicklaus endured a bit of a slump by his high standards. He did not win another major until 1970, when he captured the Open Championship on the Old Course at St. Andrews. Then came 1971, the year Magic Kingdom Theme Park opened to the public and the year that Walt Disney World hosted its first PGA TOUR event. It also was the year Nicklaus became the first player to win all four majors more than once. He clinched the PGA Championship that season and finished no worse than fifth in any of golf’s four majors. Back-to-Back to Back In 1971, Nicklaus won the inaugural Disney Classic. He would go on to repeat the following year, dominating with a 21-under-par total to win by nine strokes, then made it three in a row by edging out Mason Rudolph in 1973. “I remember going up there and playing their resort courses,” Nicklaus recalled. “I played (them) well. We played the Palm and Magnolia courses for the tournament, and I won it in ’71, then I won it in ’72, and I won it in ’73.” The PGA TOUR event then switched to a best-ball format from 1974 through 1981. Highlighted by 19 PGA TOUR wins from 1971-73, including four majors and his three Disney titles, the early 70s were exciting times for the Nicklaus family. He and wife Barbara were parents to five children, and they made the most of their time at Walt Disney World Resort during that period. “We took them into Magic Kingdom every night and did all the things parents do with kids, and we enjoyed it. It was great fun,” said Nicklaus, recalling the collaboration between what became known as “The Most Magical Place on Earth” and “The Happiest Place on Turf.” Walt Disney World would go on to host memorable tournaments and the greatest names in golf – among them, Tiger Woods, who as a 20-year-old in 1996 shot a final-round 66 to claim his second TOUR title. Woods won again at Disney in 1999, edging out Ernie Els by one stroke. Payne Stewart, Lanny Wadkins, Larry Nelson, Raymond Floyd, Vijay Singh, Luke Donald, Stephen Ames, Lucas Glover, Davis Love III and David Duval are other notable players who secured PGA TOUR titles on the Walt Disney World Resort courses. “Obviously playing and winning there is great, but it’s mostly about the family,” said Love. “We played the parent-child tournament, and the kids looked forward to it. We rode the monorail and staying right there at the golf course is just so much fun. I have great memories of Disney golf.” Players from both the PGA TOUR Champions and the LPGA Tour have also flourished at Disney World. In 1975, Charlie Sifford survived a playoff to win the first of five Senior PGA Championships held on Disney’s Magnolia Golf Course. Pat Bradley won in 1995 at Disney in the first live broadcast of an LPGA event by Golf Channel. Karrie Webb in 1996 and Michelle McGann the following year each conquered Disney’s Lake Buena Vista Golf Course for LPGA Tour victories. Hal Sutton called it a “dream come true” when he sank a 15-foot putt on the fourth playoff hole to defeat Bill Britton for his first PGA TOUR victory at the 1982 Disney Classic after the tournament returned to individual stroke play. Indeed, the resort is a place where dreams do come true. The four unique courses (Disney’s Palm, Magnolia, Lake Buena Vista and Oak Trail Golf Courses) provide layouts that are challenging enough for the world’s best, yet player-friendly enough to accommodate golfers of all ages and skill levels. Redesigned in 2013, Arnold Palmer Design Company’s extensive efforts on Disney’s Palm Golf Course were recognized two years later by Golf Magazine with the “Renovation of the Year” award. Arnold Palmer Golf Management continues its commitment to excellence through continual physical upgrades to each of its courses along with the programs and amenities that guests have come to expect. After more than four decades of hosting annual tournaments televised by ABC, ESPN, NBC and the Golf Channel, the last PGA TOUR event was played at Walt Disney World in 2012. The focus has since shifted to expanding golf’s amateur reach, where Disney continues to showcase the same world-class amenities while offering a superlative experience in stunningly beautiful surroundings for the general public, resort guests, family vacations, industry gatherings, and more. Golf Digest has ranked Walt Disney World Golf among its top five destinations for a family golf trip. Magical Moments in Professional Golf at the Walt Disney World Resort 1971 – Jack Nicklaus wins the inaugural Walt Disney World Golf Classic. Nicklaus would go on to dominate the following year, capturing the event by nine strokes, then make it three in a row by edging Mason Rudolph in 1973. 1975 – Charlie Sifford finishes at 8 under par and survives a playoff to win the first of five Senior PGA Championships played on the Disney Magnolia Golf Course. 1982 – Hal Sutton calls it a dream come true after sinking a 15-foot putt on the fourth playoff hole to defeat Bill Britton for his first PGA TOUR victory in the Walt Disney World Golf Classic. 1993 – Following a rain delay, officials illuminate the 18th hole at Disney’s Magnolia Golf Course with artificial lighting as Jeff Maggert defeats Greg Kraft by three strokes in the final round of the Walt Disney World Golf Classic. 1995 – In the first live LPGA Tour event broadcast by the Golf Channel, Pat Bradley wins on the LPGA at Walt Disney World Resort. 1996 – A 20-year-old rookie named Tiger Woods shoots a final-round 66 to capture his second career PGA TOUR victory in the Walt Disney World Golf Classic. Woods further establishes his reputation by becoming the first player in 15 years to post a top-five finish in five consecutive TOUR events. That same year, Karrie Webb takes the LPGA trophy at Walt Disney World Resort. 1997 – Michelle McGann conquers Disney’s Lake Buena Vista Golf Course en route to capturing the last of the LPGA tournaments there. 1999 – Tiger Woods wins a second Walt Disney World Golf Classic, edging Ernie Els by one shot — one of Woods’ eight victories that season. 2000 – Duffy Waldorf matches John Huston’s tournament record by finishing at 26 under par to edge Steve Flesch by one shot at the Walt Disney World Resort. 2005 – Lucas Glover holes out from a bunker 40 yards away to make birdie and earn a one-shot victory over Tom Pernice Jr. at the Walt Disney World Resort. Glover would win the U.S. Open four years later. 2006 – Justin Rose records 12 birdies in shooting a course-record 60 on Disney’s Palm Golf Course in the opening round, but it’s Joe Durant who goes on to finish at 25 under par and win by four strokes. 2011 – Walt Disney World Resort and Arnold Palmer Golf Management agree to a 20-year agreement assigning the latter to operate, manage, maintain and promote Disney’s Palm, Magnolia, Lake Buena Vista and Oak Trail Golf Courses. 2013 –Arnold Palmer Design Company reconstructed Disney’s Palm Golf Course from tees to greens, including bunkers. 2015 – Arnold Palmer Design’s revamping of Disney’s Palm Golf Course is recognized by Golf Inc. Magazine’s Renovation of the Year award. At the same time, bunker renovation is completed for the entire Disney’s Magnolia Golf Course, as well as the building of Junior tees at Disney’s Oak Trail Golf Course. 2017 – The iconic Mickey Mouse bunker on the par-3 6th hole of Disney’s Magnolia Golf Course is enhanced by implementation of a Capillary Concrete lining to improve drainage and maintain sand conditions. Full course bunker renovations begin at Disney’s Lake Buena Vista and Oak Trail Golf Courses. 2018 – Full greens renovation at Disney’s Oak Trail Golf Course 2021 – Walt Disney World Resort celebrates its 50th anniversary
