Packers GM Brian Gutekunst said the team is unified in its desire for Aaron Rodgers to return but that he never promised the reigning two-time MVP that he would trade him after the 2021 season. “That was not something I told him,” Gutekunst said.
At least six drivers with IndyCar roots will compete in the second season of Tony Stewart’s all-star racing league, including a surprising one-off appearance by a current Team Penske driver.
The Knicks and guard Kemba Walker have agreed that the four-time All-Star will be sidelined for the remainder of the team’s schedule, allowing him to work out in preparation for the 2022-23 season, sources said.
As the Nets continue to wait and hope that the New York City vaccination mandate gets lifted and Kyrie Irving is able to play in home games again, coach Steve Nash sees a renewed sense of optimism from the 29-year-old guard.
Nova Southeastern continues its undefeated run and remains perched atop the latest DII men’s basketball Power 10 rankings. Every other spot in the rankings flipped. Here’s the new Power 10.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Nick Saban has faced plenty of formidable opponents throughout his famed career. He took on a new one Wednesday. Saban played the tricky closing trio of holes at TPC Sawgrass as part of Justin Thomas’ return to the Stadium Course for a media day before his title defense in two weeks. Thomas was surprised when his golf cart rounded a hill and he saw Saban and his University of Alabama golf bag, with ‘Coach Nick Saban’ stitched on the pocket, waiting on the tee. “I can’t believe you got this guy away from recruiting long enough to come here,” Thomas exclaimed. The timing worked out perfectly, as Wednesdays are Saban’s only off day during offseason practices and he had a speaking engagement in Atlanta, a short flight away, in the evening. “I knew something was going on out here but I didn’t know who or what was going to be standing there,” Thomas said. “I’m always glad to see Coach.” Thomas and Saban first met when the golfer visited Tuscaloosa on a recruiting trip. “He was like a shy little puppy dog sitting in my office,” Saban said Wednesday. Their relationship grew during Thomas’ time with the Tide, as the golf team’s practice facility was the rare escape for the town’s most famous resident. Saban would work on his game with Alabama’s men’s golf coach, Jay Seawell, but the players were relentless in ribbing him about his well-documented chipping woes. “The more they got on me, the worse it got because the anxiety would build up,” Saban said Wednesday. Thomas returns to campus each fall to watch a football game and visit the team in the locker room. He and Saban play during the coach’s offseason, as well. They also keep in contact via text, though it’s not Saban’s preferred method of communication. “I know things are either really good or really bad if I get a text from Coach Saban because he’s not a big texter,” Thomas said. “It’s either, ‘Hey man, I saw you haven’t been playing well and wanted you to know I’m here for you,’ or, ‘I was watching and I’m proud of you.’” On Wednesday, they had the Stadium Course to themselves – with the exception of a camera crew and a handful of spectators — as they played Nos. 16-18. They talked Alabama football while Thomas relived some of his shots from PLAYERS past and guided Saban through the treacherous stretch. Unfortunately, it got the best of him. “I love seeing JT,” Saban said. “He’s a lot of fun to be around. My expectation for today was to hit a few in the water. I didn’t disappoint.” That included two tee shots in the water on 17. His first attempt was a few feet short of land, while his second shot landed on the back of the green before bouncing into the water. Thomas took the blame after recommending that Saban hit a soft 9-iron to the Island Green instead of swinging hard with a pitching wedge. This was Thomas’ first time at TPC Sawgrass since his win at last year’s PLAYERS, where he shot 64-68 on the weekend to win by one after barely making the cut. “It’s a special place and an amazing course,” Thomas said. “I have a lot of great memories here, but just because you’re excited doesn’t mean it’s going to be handed to you. I have to put in some work and get ready to try to defend.” Thomas, 28, has 14 PGA TOUR wins but is seeking his first victory since his triumph at TPC Sawgrass. He’s 23rd in this season’s FedExCup standings thanks to four top-10s in six starts. Saban was quick to tell Thomas that defending his title should not be a concern, however. “I give him the same speech I give our team. When you win a championship they say you have to defend,” Saban said. “You don’t have to defend. No one can take away what you did last year. Just go have fun and do it again. “There’s no such thing as defending a title, in my opinion. If they took it away from you, it would be different. But you’re always going to be a PLAYERS champion and you’re always going to have that special place in the locker room, so just have fun and win it again.”
Paul Jesperson’s 50-foot buzzer-beater is the longest in March Madness history. Here’s a look at how it happened.
New Orleans Saints assistant coaches Ryan Nielsen and Kris Richard have been named co-defensive coordinators under new head coach Dennis Allen, the team announced Wednesday.
The New Orleans Saints assistant coaches Ryan Nielsen and Kris Richard are being promoted into the roles of co-defensive coordinators, sources told ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg.
Cameron Young was not quite a year old when “Sliding Doors” hit theaters in 1998, but the Gwyneth Paltrow romantic comedy resonates with the PGA TOUR rookie and his wife, Kelsey. As in the movie, his present circumstances – 17th in the FedExCup after two runner-up finishes, most recently at The Genesis Invitational last week – go back to one seemingly innocuous moment. Without it, one could argue, he wouldn’t be on the PGA TOUR yet, let alone in pole position for Arnold Palmer Rookie of the Year. It was August of 2020, and Young was a frustrated, if highly decorated amateur who had reached an inflection point as he contemplated whether to leave home in Florida for a Korn Ferry Tour Monday qualifier for the Pinnacle Bank Championship in Omaha, Nebraska. Burnt out, he decided to skip it. Life at this level was a thankless grind. Maybe he wasn’t good enough. Of course, no one would think that of him today, just as no one would have suggested it when he was a kid. A dynamo on the New York amateur scene, Young was the youngest winner of the Westchester Amateur at 14, youngest winner of the Ike Championship at 18 – a title he successfully defended – and the first amateur to win the New York State Open in 2017. He got a scholarship to join Will Zalatoris at Wake Forest, where he won twice as a freshman and was a three-time all-conference performer. Zalatoris recalls a nine-hole practice round in which Young, running late, joined them on the fourth hole, made a flurry of birdies and eagles, then began thinking aloud where they might all decamp for dinner. “Didn’t hit a single ball warming up,” Zalatoris says, “didn’t hit a single putt …’” After college, Young was antsy to turn pro and reach the PGA TOUR, like contemporaries Collin Morikawa, Matthew Wolff, Viktor Hovland, and Zalatoris. Young medaled at PGA TOUR Canada qualifying school in March of 2020, but then the world, and his career, ground to a halt. “That was the day they announced shutting all golf down for the foreseeable future thanks to COVID,” he says. “So that’s in March and you wait around until May and you’re hoping at end of May you will play in Canada and then it’s June, July, and then that tour is cancelled. “Sitting there for those months, stuck, was awful.” When golf in some capacity started back up his only avenue was the Korn Ferry Tour Monday qualifiers and mini tour events, a life Young called “miserable.” He yearned to compete on a bigger stage. “People don’t always realize how fine the lines are,” he says. “At that level everyone is good, everyone is trying to do the same thing and unless you do something special you won’t get anywhere. You can shoot 65 every week and you don’t get anything, not that I did that, but I did play three Mondays in a row and two mini tour events in between them and I went back and did the math. My scoring average was like 66.8 for those three weeks and I made just $100 and didn’t qualify out of any of the Mondays.” The frustration informed his decision to skip a trip to Omaha for another Monday qualifier in August. Having spent so much time on the road, he felt it was time to regroup at home with Kelsey in Florida. “It was either Thursday or Friday night,” he says of his Gwyneth Paltrow/Sliding Doors moment, “and I told her, ‘I’m not going. It’s the last one of the season – what’s the point? I’m done.’ I didn’t want to go; I was fed up with playing really well and getting nothing for it. But to her credit she said, ‘You’re right. It’s the last one of the season. So why don’t you go? You can have a break after.’” Looking for a second opinion, Young called his coach and father, David, PGA of America Professional and the head pro at Sleepy Hollow Country Club in Scarborough, New York. That’s where Cameron had learned the game from the age of 4. It was where he would jump off the train from school, grab a wedge and balls, and milk the last minutes of daylight. Now, though, his life had gotten complicated. This wasn’t the first time he’d wanted to quit; Young says that as he matured, he began to rely on his father’s patient counsel more and more. (He still plays regularly with his dad, whom he first beat when he shot 68 at age 12, and mom Barbara, a very good player who has caddied for Cameron.) This time, David, like Kelsey, advised Cameron to play on. So Young begrudgingly packed a bag and told Kelsey he’d see her in 36 hours. He wouldn’t come home for six weeks. A life-changing run Young got through the Monday qualifier in Omaha, despite sleeping through his alarm and making it to the course just 25 minutes prior to his tee time. He then finished T11 in the tournament proper. Players who finish in the top 25 on the Korn Ferry earn another start the following week, so Young was off to the Portland Open, where he tied for 14th. After so much frustration, it was finally happening. He finished T6 at the Albertsons Boise Open (T6) and almost won the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Open in Columbus Ohio but settled for a runner-up finish. He missed the cut in the Korn Ferry Tour Championship, but thanks to his decision to play in Omaha, and his subsequent heater, he now had a place to play going forward. He had Special Temporary Membership. And just in time. Before Omaha, he was unsure how he was going to fund his upcoming entry fees and travel. “I think I had more golf planned for the next two weeks than I had money to pay for it,” Young says. “I had like five grand to my name. I was literally drafting an email for the membership at Sleepy Hollow for potential support. If I was a shot or two worse, I wouldn’t have got in the following week so you think of all the six footers that kind of bounced in or fell off the lip. That’s how cutthroat golf is. That’s the difference from being here on the PGA TOUR to being God knows where.” After a tough start last season, Young became the 10th back-to-back winner in Korn Ferry Tour history at the AdventHealth Championship (May 23) and NV5 Invitational presented by Old National Bank (May 30). He shared the lead once and led outright for the other seven rounds, a Korn Ferry Tour record, and would finish 19th in the regular season points list to punch his ticket to the PGA TOUR. “After the first win I think I moved to 26th on the list and a TOUR card all of a sudden became possible in my mind,” he says. “It was the rejuvenation of the season I needed. I went from feeling that I didn’t know what I was doing to thinking, I’m right there. My mentality changed and from there it was easier.” The momentum from his first win carried straight through to his second, and although he badly wanted a third win and with it an automatic promotion to the PGA TOUR, he would take on two more top-10s. “The KFT is a great place to develop,” Young says, “a great place for the next guys to come through, but the hard part is no one wants to be there. You are so happy when you get there because it means you can get to the PGA TOUR, but as soon as you earn status out there you are trying to leave as fast as you can. “The mood on the range on the KFT is so different to the PGA TOUR.” Fast start as a rookie It was such a grind to make it to the PGA TOUR, Young vowed to do whatever it took to stick. In his second start of this season, at the Sanderson Farms Championship, he finished second to former junior Ryder Cup teammate Sam Burns. A couple of weeks on the periphery of contention followed. Young was in the mix at The American Express before a final-round 77. He shot a third-round 64 at the Farmers Insurance Open. Then he came to The Genesis Invitational at The Riviera Country Club. It was a stacked field, but the big-hitting rookie liked the course and predicted he would do well. “I’m going to have a couple good chances to win coming up because I’m playing pretty good and simple golf,” Young said Wednesday, as the best field of the season so far prepared to tee it up. “I am blessed that throughout my life I’ve always had a couple of weeks when I’ve been really good and typically it’s been good enough to win and I’m living under the assumption that that will continue.” Sure enough, Young opened 66, 62, which in any other year would have grabbed the headlines. Joaquin Niemann opened 63-63 and went on to win the tournament by two over Young and Collin Morikawa. Young now heads to The Honda Classic at PGA National, where he once claimed a huge American Junior Golf Association victory in 2013. The good vibes continue and as we’ve seen, when Young is in form, he tends to maintain momentum. And he’s home in Florida with family, including newborn son Henry. He ranks second on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (+.812) and fourth in driving distance (320.2). He has more drives of 320+ yards than anyone else on TOUR, with his 183 well ahead of Joseph Bramlett’s 157. World No.1 Jon Rahm has 113. Young is also 7th in birdie average with five a round. His run of results has him 53rd in the world, up from 526th on May 1, 2021. If he can find a way into the top 50, it would mean a berth in THE PLAYERS Championship and possibly the Masters. “I’m looking forward to playing at PGA National again,” Young says. He is aware of his ranking but says he’s trying not to dwell on it, instead focusing on what has been working in his game. “If you told me before the season that I’d be at this point now I certainly wouldn’t have believed you,” he says. “I would have been thrilled with it, I’m sure. Now, we just keep going and see what happens. At the end of the day, I know I’m somewhat lucky to be out here. Although I’m confident I would have found a way, I’ve seen how one moment can change your life. I don’t intend to take anything for granted.”
