Hall of Famer Bill Fitch, two-time NBA coach of the year who led the Boston Celtics to the league title in 1981 and won 944 regular-season games with five teams, has died at the age of 89.
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced today the 10 watch list members for the 2022 Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year Award. Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren and Auburn’s Jabari Smith are two athletes that made the list.
Broncos president of football operations John Elway called the allegations made by Brian Flores about his 2019 interview with Denver “false and defamatory.”
Kansas City Chiefs QB coach and passing game coordinator Mike Kafka is set to become the new offensive coordinator for the New York Giants, a source confirms to ESPN.
Although he acknowledges that the Rooney Rule hasn’t helped to get minority head coaches hired so far this offseason, Steelers president Art Rooney II said the enhancements to the rule have helped to get more minority general managers hired.
Our NFL Nation reporters played GM and navigated the offseason quarterback market, through trade offers, free-agent deals and early-round draft picks. Who landed a new starter?
Why are the 49ers moving on from Garoppolo? When could a trade happen? And who could be interested?
How do you spend your Saturday nights? If you’re Maverick McNealy – a 26-year-old Stanford graduate who sits 18th in this season’s FedExCup standings – you might find yourself inventing a training aid. McNealy texted Odyssey rep Joe Toulon on the Saturday prior to the start of the Farmers Insurance Open with an idea. He wanted a training aid for his putter that would help him put his hands on the grip the same way every time. In the latest example of a TOUR pro thinking about the tools in his toolbox in a unique way, McNealy wanted to create a mold of the way he currently holds his putter and have that mold put onto a backup putter to use as a training aid. McNealy is 50th in Strokes Gained: Putting this season, gaining 0.31 strokes per round on the greens. To help bottle the positive feelings he has on the greens, the mold can help his hands return to this baseline if he gets lost. “Everybody has seen those clubs that have, like, the training grip on it that shows you where to put your hands,” Toulon told GolfWRX. “And he had this thought, ‘What if I do that off of my own putter grip and make a grip off that, and every time I’m a little bit lost with my putting or my grip feels like it’s changed a little bit, I know what it needs to feel like?’ He’s obviously putting well right now, so he kind of wants to hang onto that feeling and make sure he knows exactly how things have change. It would act like a guide. It’s a good time to get a baseline.” A brilliant idea, but how do you actually make something like that? The Odyssey team began brainstorming solutions to McNealy’s request, but McNealy had a better answer. His uncle, Bob Randolph, runs a dental office in the San Diego area, and dentists often use molding material to create impressions for teeth. The patient simply bites down on a putty-like material, and it hardens over time to create a mold. Why not use that same material to mold hands on a putter grip? Well, that’s exactly what they did. “It’s actually funny,” McNealy explained at Torrey Pines. “I was wanting a way to grip my putter consistently like a grip trainer, so I was talking to him about that stuff they use for impressions. We wrapped some of that around my putter grip on Monday.” The Odyssey research and development team currently has the mold of McNealy’s hands, and they’re working on a way to scan it and turn it into a putter grip. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take, because we’ve never done anything like that,” Toulon said. “To actually scan it is pretty easy, and then, we’re actually talking about potentially 3D printing the grip. It’s kind of uncharted territory. We’re just learning as we go, but I think it’s something that we can do.” Assuming Odyssey pulls this off and creates the perfect training-aid grip for McNealy, this begs the question going forward: Could anyone mold their hands and have it turned into a putter grip? If so, could average golfers get their hands on the molded grips of top PGA TOUR players to see what it’s like to hold the putter like them? The applications for this type of training aid could be endless. And it’s all thanks to a concept McNealy created while deep in thought on a Saturday night. “Yeah, it’s my first foray into dental molding,” Toulon said. “But McNealy thinks of all that kind of stuff. He likes to tinker. He’s obviously a very bright guy. It’s a Saturday night and he’s thinking of stuff like that. Those are the fun things when you can help bring a brilliant idea like that to life. “It could be something we can use for all the TOUR players. How does Jon Rahm hold the putter? Here’s his grip.” Albeit illegal to use in competition, or during a round of golf, molded grips could potentially be a game-changer for McNealy, and for so many average golfers looking to improve.
Illinois center Kofi Cockburn has unfinished business this year. The big man sits down with Andy Katz to discuss his return to school as well as his plans to redeem last year’s early exit in March.
For the golfer who wants his resume to be the envy of his fellow professionals, there are certain venues that capture attention. Obviously wins at Augusta National come not only with a Green Jacket but yards of cache. Really, wins at any major, of which Mark O’Meara has a pair including one at the Masters, look good on a resume. But what about other venues? Where does it really matter if a guy has won outside of the four majors? Surely, TPC Sawgrass is on the short list. And so is Pebble Beach, home of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on the PGA TOUR and the PURE Insurance Championship on PGA TOUR Champions, otherwise known as O’Meara’s personal playground. O’Meara, 65, won an event at Pebble Beach in each of three decades beginning with the 1979 California State Amateur. He won the PGA TOUR event played at Pebble five times, including the last time it was called the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am and four times after AT&T became the title sponsor. “Sometimes you hear people say O’Meara won 16 times but five were at Pebble Beach,” O’Meara said Wednesday. “Well, with all due respect to the great venues out there, where would you rather win five? Unless you win a major or The Players Championship, Pebble is probably next on the hit list.” Phil Mickelson joined O’Meara in 2019 as a five-time winner at Pebble. O’Meara said he texted Lefty in the aftermath and said, “Congratulations but I think that’s enough, young man.” O’Meara has been hitting Pebble hard since his first trip to the Monterey Peninsula, for the California State Amateur in 1979, when he was a senior at Long Beach State. He was immediately taken by the beauty and mystique of the area. It also didn’t hurt that he won the 36-hole final match 8&7. O’Meara credits that first trip as being a cornerstone of his success at Pebble Beach. Before he had even turned pro, he had good vibes for the place. He also didn’t mind the poa annua greens. They can be very bumpy and tricky to read, but O’Meara grew up in Mission Viejo putting on poa annua. “It was a combination of factors that lead to my success at Pebble,” said O’Meara, who added that he’ll play about a dozen events on PGA TOUR Champions this season, including the PURE Insurance Championship. “First for me to go back there and have all the fond memories of the State Amateur. And a lot of great players won the California State Amateur. I also love to play so much in the natural beauty and growing up on poa annua greens that are very bumpy and knowing you have to be very patient. “You also have to be patient because being in the final group it can take almost six hours to play. You’re playing with amateurs. I love amateurs. My dad was a real people person, a sales guy. I had more fun playing with amateurs than I did my pros. They were an escape for me to not always worry about what was happening with Mark O’Meara on the golf course. It took my mind off what I was doing right or wrong on the course. Instead of just focusing on me, if I could engage with the amateurs it took my mind away. I just used them as a positive, not a distraction. Other guys don’t feel the same way about it. That’s why I had a lot of success at Pebble.” O’Meara won the tournament once with his dad as his amateur partner. He cited that as one of the most cherished memories of his life. The year was 1990. They had first played together in 1986, the year after his first victory at the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am. And they made the cut. After O’Meara won in 1989, he invited his dad to come play with him one more time. “I gave it to him as a Christmas present,” O’Meara said. “I flew him and mom out and then I won the tournament playing alongside my dad. I put that right at the top of the list of great things, winning at Augusta with a putt on the final hole, winning the U.S. Amateur. But to play with my father and coming up the last hole, the 18th hole at Pebble, you can’t do better than that.”
