Day: August 3, 2022

Webb Simpson ‘relieved’ to be named Presidents Cup assistantWebb Simpson ‘relieved’ to be named Presidents Cup assistant

August 3, 2022August 3, 2022| 22:26

GREENSBORO, N.C. – It was Webb Simpson’s turn to order hot dogs for his energetic and hungry brood when the phone rang last Tuesday. “Tiger, I’ll have to call you back,” the harried father of five told the 15-time major champion. When he did, Simpson received some unexpected – and welcome – news. Woods told him he was going to be an assistant captain at the Presidents Cup in September at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, where Simpson makes his home. “It meant a lot, but honestly, I got done with the phone call and I’m like, I don’t know if that was official or not,” Simpson said. “I don’t know if he meant like he’s rooting for me to be an assistant or if I am an assistant.” After all, Davis Love III is the captain, not Woods, and Love wasn’t the one who made the call. But he and Simpson finally talked – yes, Tiger “spilled the beans,” Love later said with a grin – and Simpson couldn’t be happier to join Zach Johnson, Steve Stricker and Fred Couples on the staff. Simpson has played in three Presidents Cups and three Ryder Cups, and has always had this one circled on his calendar. He lives beside the seventh tee at Quail Hollow – he joked Tuesday that maybe someone could leave an opening in the fencing so he could drive his cart home each night – and is a North Carolina native. This will be the first Presidents Cup played in his home state. Problem is, Simpson ranks a distant 29th in the U.S. Team standings, so his chances of being picked are relatively slim, barring a couple of wins in the next four weeks. “Not that I feared not being a part of it, but there was a part of me that’s like, if I don’t make the team and Davis goes a different direction, that’s fine, but it’s going to be hard to see the Presidents Cup happen there and not be a part of it in some way,” Simpson said. “So, I was really, really relieved to get a chance to be a part of it.” Love, who is a two-time Ryder Cup captain and was Simpson’s favorite player growing up, said the goal is to add new players to the mix as potential captains for all U.S. Teams going forward. At the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits last year, Matt Kuchar filled that role. “We said in those Ryder Cup meetings … (that) instead of Davis bringing his four pals and hanging out for a week, we’re going to have two former captains and two future captains here for the assistants,” Love said. “We set kind of a criteria. So, we’re letting that spill into Presidents Cup, too. “It’s like Team USA basketball,” he continued. “We’re not just going to show up as a bunch of superstars and just shoot the ball around. We’re going to have a program year-round to get ready to play international competition.” Love said he definitely sees the 37-year-old Simpson as a future captain. He doesn’t know if he’ll lead a U.S. Team at a Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup “but he needs to be in the system.” He’s a natural leader and he has a servant’s heart, Love explained. When he captained the 2012 Ryder Cup, Love remembers watching Simpson with great interest. He and Bubba Watson partnered three times, winning two of those matches, but after each one, the two players and their caddies would gather on the green and pray. “He’s always the leader or the calming influence, or the guy to do the right thing at the right time,” Love said. “And we would stand on the side of the green and just go look, we don’t have to tell him what to do. He’s a Ryder Cup rookie but he’s a team leader. So that doesn’t just influence his caddies but the players around him. Everybody sits back and goes look, holy cow. This guy’s different. “He’s always been like that, but that was when it really hit me,” he added. “The things he just does for people, you know? I said, ‘This is perfect for you because you like to serve. No matter what it is you want to do for other people.’ He’s excited about the golf and he is excited about Charlotte, but he’s excited to give back.” Simpson, who said he plans to be a sponge during the matches at Quail Hollow, hasn’t abandoned the idea of making an international team – maybe even this year, should he get hot over the next four weeks. But as he approaches his 37th birthday on Monday, he knows his opportunities are growing more limited. Over the last three years, Simpson worked hard to add length, and he feels his 2020 wins at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and RBC Heritage were a byproduct of those efforts. But so were some bad swing habits that really manifested themselves this year as he collected just one top-10 finish, a T8 at The RSM Classic, in 18 starts heading into this week’s Wyndham Championship. “So I feel like the last four, five months we’ve been playing catch up, trying to neutralize everything,” Simpson said. “We’ve been pulling up a lot of video from ’17, ’18, ’19 before I started getting longer. The good news is I’ve retained the distance, but I’m starting to hit more fairways.” He has held fast to his confidence, he said, despite lackluster results that have left him at No. 117 on the FedExCup eligibility list. (He’s never finished lower than 87th and has appeared the Playoffs 13 straight seasons.) And more good news, he loves this week’s TOUR stop, the Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club, having posted one win, four finishes in the top 3 and nine top-10s in 12 starts there. “I believe in myself,” Simpson said. “I’ve just got to be a little smarter, I’ve got to think a little better. And this golf course, even though the scores are good every year, it is a golf course where you cannot make mistakes, otherwise it’s so penal. The rough is up this year, so I’m looking forward to that challenge. I’ve just got to limit my mistakes. The last few weeks I’ve just been saying I just want to get to Memphis, I want to make the Playoffs. I haven’t been in this position for a while where I needed to make a push.” One thing he doesn’t have to worry about is whether or not that push will be enough to propel him onto Love’s team that will defend its title at Quail Hollow. Simpson is already relishing the home game as only a local can, and it’s nice to know he’ll be there, one way or another.

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FedExCup scenarios into Wyndham ChampionshipFedExCup scenarios into Wyndham Championship

August 3, 2022August 3, 2022| 20:17

The Wyndham Championship marks the final event of the PGA TOUR’s Regular Season, as tensions mount in the chase for FedExCup Playoffs berths. Players who finish inside the top 125 on the FedExCup Playoffs and Eligibility Points List upon the conclusion of the Wyndham Championship will enter the three-event FedExCup Playoffs, beginning at next week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship. The Playoffs field will be cut to 70 players into the BMW Championship, then to 30 players into the TOUR Championship. Since the current points structure debuted in 2009, an average of 2.5 players per year entered the final week of FedExCup Regular Season outside the top 125 in the standings and proceeded to qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs. The top 96 players on the FedExCup entering the week are mathematically safe, with various permutations allowing certain players to move inside and outside the top 125 based on how the competition unfolds in North Carolina. Players who finish Nos. 126-200 on the Playoffs and Eligibility Points List, not otherwise exempt, will have the chance to regain TOUR status via the three-event Korn Ferry Tour Finals. (Nos. 126-150 will be assured conditional TOUR status next season at minimum.) Statistical models project that the final top-125 number will fall somewhere between 320 and 340 points. Here’s a look at the minimum finish required by players currently outside the top 125 to have a chance to qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs. Note: Bolded players are exempt on TOUR through at least the 2023 season. Here’s a look at the Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 into the Wyndham Championship, as well as players in the field who have a chance to break inside. The Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 will be finalized upon the conclusion of the Wyndham Championship, rewarding players for elite performance across the Regular Season. Top 10 into Wyndham Championship: Players with a chance to break inside:

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Legendary broadcaster Vin Scully passes away at 94Legendary broadcaster Vin Scully passes away at 94

August 3, 2022August 3, 2022| 13:55

Vin Scully was 8 years old when, in an essay assigned by the nuns at his parochial school, he declared his desire to be a sports broadcaster. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of the men he heard on a nightly basis as he listened to his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers on his family’s large, four-legged radio. “What a job!” he recalled thinking as he enjoyed his pre-bedtime snack of milk and crackers and enjoyed the southern drawl of Red Barber. But even a young Scully couldn’t have envisioned what lay ahead, a career that spanned parts of eight decades and had him narrate some of the biggest moments in sports, including 67 years calling games for his beloved Dodgers. “As far back as I can remember, that’s what I wanted,” Scully said about his career as a broadcaster. “God’s been good.” Scully went from listening to Barber on the radio to working alongside him. Barber, another legend of the industry, described Scully as “the son I never had,” mentoring him and instilling a professionalism that complemented Scully’s genial tone. When asked what he learned from Barber in those early years, Scully mentioned two things: “You should have the attitude of a reporter, not a fan. You’re not there to have a good time. You’re there to work, not to clown with guys around the batting cage. “Above everything else, the people have to believe you. If there’s the slightest doubt about your accuracy and fairness, you aren’t doing it right.” He brought those characteristics to the booth at Ebbets Field and Chavez Ravine, where he narrated the careers of Sandy Koufax and Clayton Kershaw, but his talents translated across sports. He called 19 no-hitters in his baseball broadcasting career, 14 of those by his Dodgers. But Scully also sat in the press box high above San Francisco’s Candlestick Park and called the 1982 NFC Championship game for CBS that saw Joe Montana connect with Dwight Clark for “The Catch,” a touchdown that led to the San Francisco 49ers’ win over the Dallas Cowboys and a trip to the Niners’ first Super Bowl. He was one of the announcers for the 1950 World Series, working for the Brooklyn Dodgers at the tender age of 23, still the youngest person to broadcast a World Series game, and he’s remembered nationwide for his call of Bill Buckner’s error and the New York Mets’ ensuing Game 6 rally against the Boston Red Sox in the 1986 World Series. His most famous call may have come on Kirk Gibson’s game-winning home run two years later in the opening game of the 1988 World Series. “In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened,” Scully declared as an injured Gibson hobbled around the bases, pumping his fist. Yes, all big events. But right up there with those golden moments in sports history was 1975 in Georgia. Scully was there, too. As a first-year CBS Sports broadcaster, Scully was the network voice of the Masters, a tournament that year featuring a duel between Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller and Tom Weiskopf, still considered one of the best and most-important Masters in history. At the opening of the final-round telecast, which, in those days, was but two hours and showed only the back-nine action, Scully proclaimed, “The Augusta National Golf Club has seen some marvelous finishing rounds, and in this fourth and final round of the 1975 Masters might very well be a story that will live for many years to come.” Prescient comment. With Nicklaus finished at 12 under, Miller and Weiskopf, both tied and trailing the Golden Bear by one, had the 18th hole to still negotiate. Miller hit his approach shot right of the pin, to 15 feet. Weiskopf went next, knocking his pitching-wedge approach shot to 8 feet above the hole. “And he’s inside Miller. Oh, what a horse race,” Scully exclaimed. When Miller missed his putt, what Scully called a “gallant effort,” he also added, “and one birdie flew away.” It was then Weiskopf’s turn, “one last shot in the arsenal.” Weiskopf didn’t make his putt, leaving Nicklaus to put on his fifth green jacket. The only voice viewers heard in those final, exciting minutes was Scully’s. No analyst sat next to him. And for much of that late-afternoon drama, the announcer stayed silent, letting the pictures tell the story. It was a hallmark of Scully’s understated style that was fitting for a man known for his humility and grace. He passed away Aug. 2 at the age of 94. Scully will most certainly always be inexorably tied to baseball due to his decades broadcasting Dodger baseball as well as network games. But sometimes lost in a career that earned Scully a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among a myriad of other honors, was his work in the golf broadcast booth, usually near the 18th holes at some of golf’s most-important tournaments. He worked for both CBS and NBC, calling the Masters as well as the first PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass. Despite his legendary status, even in 1975, Scully was still an unknown to Augusta National Chairman Clifford Roberts, who asked, “Who is this baseball guy?” when he found out who CBS had hired to do Masters play-by-play. Roberts soon found out. Scully skipped the 1976 Masters due to baseball commitments but handled play-by-play duty from Augusta National through the 1982 tournament when he left CBS Sports due to his desire to call national baseball. He joined NBC Sports mainly because it held Major League Baseball rights and showed its Saturday baseball “Game of the Week.” While baseball was the draw, Scully began calling PGA TOUR golf in early 1983. His first assignment was the 1983 Bob Hope Desert Classic, followed by the Hawaiian Open at Honolulu’s Waialae Country Club a week later. In the final round at Waialae, Japan’s Isao Aoki holed out from the fairway to immediately end the tournament as Aoki defeated Jack Renner, who was sitting in the scoring tent when Aoki’s shot went in. Scully, watching the shot land on the green and go in the hole, immediately left his mark with a classic comment, referencing nearby Diamond Head, “Jack Renner thought he had a handful of diamonds, but they turned into calcite.” Throughout his career, Scully worked with legendary golf broadcasting figures, including CBS’s Pat Summerall, Jack Whitaker, Ben Wright and Ken Venturi, all under the direction of Frank Chirkinian. When CBS signed a deal with the PGA TOUR to take on a larger role in televised golf after ABC Sports allowed its contract to expire, Scully expanded his golf repertoire beyond the fairways of Augusta National. It was in 1979 that Scully first traveled to what was then a sleepy seaside enclave of Ponte Vedra Beach outside of Jacksonville, Florida, to broadcast the Tournament Players Championship from Sawgrass Country Club, just a four-hour drive from Vero Beach, the spring training home of the Dodgers. He continued to make his way to North Florida every March, even after the tournament moved across the street to the newly built TPC Sawgrass. He was in the 18th-hole tower when Jerry Pate in 1982 hit his 5-iron approach shot to the closing hole to three feet and rolled in the birdie putt for the victory. Scully then watched what he called “perhaps the wildest moment in the history of sports” as Pate tossed then-PGA TOUR Commissioner Deane Beman into the lake adjacent to the 18th hole, pushed course designer Pete Dye in after him and then dove in the water himself. “I was a great admirer of Vin and his career. At CBS, he broadcast the network’s most-important events, and A No. 1 was the NFL. When he started broadcasting golf, it was a real positive for the PGA TOUR because somebody of his stature did not do minor events,” recalled Beman. “At that time, we were still a minor sport. I think it was a very subtle message to the public that when Vin Scully started doing golf that golf was more important than they realized. I think Vin probably saw in the future that golf had the opportunity to become a major sport. It took a while, but that’s what it became. I don’t think Vin would have taken golf under his wing if he didn’t think golf was worthy of somebody of his stature describing the action.” Scully broadcast nine PLAYERS Championships for CBS then took a two-year hiatus when NBC assumed the tournament’s telecast rights. Scully returned to TPC Sawgrass in 1990 when he took a job with NBC. That first year, Scully teamed with Lee Trevino, a future World Golf Hall of Fame member, who had left competitive golf to move into broadcasting. Scully also worked alongside Bob Costas and Bob Goalby, among others. In addition to his regular schedule of official PGA TOUR events, Scully was also closely associated with and the voice of the popular Skins Game. He first worked the annual Thanksgiving weekend exhibition in 1986 from PGA West in Palm Springs, a tournament featuring Trevino, Nicklaus, Fuzzy Zoeller and Arnold Palmer. Scully left NBC Sports in 1990 when his old employer, CBS, secured the MLB contract. Although he had two years remaining on his NBC deal, the network asking him to stay and work its 14 scheduled PGA TOUR tournaments, Scully declined, citing the time away from home and wanting only to travel with the Dodgers. That same year, Trevino left NBC to join what was then known as the Senior PGA Tour. Scully’s golf-broadcasting year essentially ended but a legacy of greatness left behind. Scully also was a passionate player, describing in a 2020 Forbes article the pangs he felt when his golf clubs were among the items sold at auction. “I did have a twinge that there goes a major portion of my life, because I played with my wife, Sandi, at home and all over the world and we had a wonderful time,” he said. He counted three aces and an eagle at Bel-Air’s second hole as the highlights of his time on the career. “I would never consider myself a good golfer,” Scully said, “just an extremely lucky one.” It was that same grace and gratitude that made him a legend.

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