PALMETTO, Fla. – Competitors in Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires will turn their attention to the Sunshine State in a month’s time for a two-day open test at Sebring (Fla.) Int’l Raceway on Dec. 11-12.

Sebring has long been a popular off-season locale for teams, being renowned as the best portrayal of a street circuit – which typically offers precious little track time – and will be extremely relevant heading into the 2020 calendar opener on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla.

“There’s no better place to get ready for St. Pete and Toronto than Sebring,” said reigning Indy Lights champion Oliver Askew. “St. Pete is smoother than Toronto, which is as bumpy as Sebring if not bumpier, but it’s the low-grip factor that makes it such a relevant testing ground. Sebring also has a good mix of both high and low speed corners and heavy braking zones – it’s in the top-five tracks in terms of braking force.

“It’s hard to simulate the kind of walls you encounter on a street course, but Sebring has a few corners where, if you’re an inch off the line, it can bite you. It’s dusty and it gets really hot during the middle of the day, so track temps and lap times change quite a bit. It’s a good place to work on street course setups, to test in hot weather and get used to those conditions, and to gel with the team early in the testing season.”

The 1.8-mile, 11-turn Sebring Club Course will play host to a field that will include the debut of Exclusive Autosport, race winners in both the Indy Pro 2000 Series Presented by Cooper Tires and the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship, which will now compete on all three levels. The team announced its intent to enter two cars in 2020 at the season finale in September.

HMD Motorsports is looking to expand from a two-car team to a three and possibly four-car squad for 2020 and already has the third car in their possession. The team was no stranger to podium results in 2019, guiding English rookie Toby Sowery to his first win and third place in the championship, and fellow rookie David Malukas to a pair of podium results.

Indy Lights stalwarts Andretti Autosport, Belardi Auto Racing and Juncos Racing are expected to return to the track with a full complement of drivers, and the potential for another new team entry to the Indy Lights paddock is in the works.

“A lot of teams head to Sebring for winter testing, and to this year make it an official series’ two-day test benefits all of our teams as well as new drivers looking at the series,” said Dan Andersen, Owner and CEO of Andersen Promotions. “We have high expectations for an increased field size next season, although 2019 produced some outstanding competition, and we will be closely following our two most recent champions – Oliver Askew and Patricio O’Ward – as they make their full season NTT IndyCar Series debuts.

“We’ve had some exciting announcements of late including the introduction of the CFP [Cockpit Frontal Protection] device, new series partner Bell Helmets, the creation of the Construction Contractors Club and the return of Hi-Tide Boat Lifts and the rewarding Kids On Track program. We have additional news in the pipeline as we look to make 2020 one of our best seasons yet for the Road to Indy.”

Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby missed practice Monday and will not play against the New York Rangers on Tuesday in New York because of a lower-body injury.

"Sid is continuing to be evaluated right now," coach Mike Sullivan said. "I don't have an update for you. He will not play against the Rangers tomorrow. When I get further information, I will let you know."

The 32-year-old Crosby left the ice in the third period of the Penguins' shootout win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday. It wasn't clear when he was injured, but he had fallen awkwardly and also took a puck off the leg earlier in the game.

Crosby leads the Penguins with 17 points on five goals and 12 assists. Pittsburgh is currently fourth in the Metro Division.

One year since he teamed with Matt Kuchar for a memorable win that led to a less memorable dispute over compensation, caddie David Ortiz said he harbors no ill will toward his former player.

Ortiz, better known as "El Tucan" was a fill-in caddie for Kuchar at last year's Mayakoba Golf Classic. Kuchar went on to win the tournament, his first PGA Tour title in more than four years, and pocketed $1.3 million. Ortiz became the centerpiece of a social media firestorm when word got out earlier this year that Kuchar had only paid him $5,000 for the week's work rather than a typical caddie salary of 5 to 10 percent of a winner's check.

Kuchar eventually paid Ortiz an additional $45,000, and while that still fell below what an everyday looper might expect to receive, Ortiz is willing to move on according to a New York Post report.

"Kuchar is a good person," Ortiz said. "I'm not angry. Everything is good. Not paying was not good. But I have no anger."

According to the report, Ortiz initially planned to invest some of his earnings from Kuchar into building a laundromat, but decided against it over fears that he'd be charged inflated prices by local workers who had learned of his high-profile windfall.

He's also experienced an uptick in demand to caddie at Mayakoba, where resort visitors are now willing to pay a higher price to have the man that guided Kuchar to victory on their bag for the day.

Ortiz reportedly bought a used BMW with part of the money he received from Kuchar, with much of the remaining funds going toward his business ventures and everyday needs outside of caddying.

"Fifty thousand dollars, for me, is big," Ortiz said. "It's everything to me and not much to (Kuchar). The $50,000 I needed for my business and to fix my kitchen and bathroom at home and to buy a new cell phone."

Here's a look at what's happening in professional golf this week, and how you can watch it:

PGA Tour

Mayakoba Golf Classic

Thursday-Sunday, El Camaleon GC at Mayakoba Resort, Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Course specs: Par 71, 7,017 yards

Purse: $7.2 million

Defending champion: Matt Kuchar

Notables in the field: Kuchar, Jason Day, Viktor Hovland, Tony Finau, Lanto Griffin, Joaquin Niemann

Tee times: TBD

TV schedule: Thursday-Friday, 1-5 p.m. ET (Golf Channel); Saturday-Sunday, 2-5 p.m. ET (Golf Channel)

European Tour

Nedbank Golf Challenge

Thursday-Sunday, Gary Player CC, Sun City, South Africa

Course specs: Par 72, 7,834 yards

Purse: $7.5 million

Defending champion: Lee Westwood

Notables in the field: Westwood, Tommy Fleetwood, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Henrik Stenson, Louis Oosthuizen, Bernd Wiesberger

Tee times: TBD

TV schedule: Thursday, 2-9 a.m. ET (Golf Channel); Friday. 3-9 a.m. ET (Golf Channel); Saturday, 2:30-8:30 a.m. ET (Golf Channel); Sunday, 2-8 a.m. ET (Golf Channel)

Other events

• Asian Tour, Panasonic Open India, Thursday-Sunday
• Japan Tour, Taiheiyo Masters, Thursday-Sunday
• PGA Tour Latinoamerica, Argentine Open, Thursday-Sunday

Tiger Woods has a special connection to Veterans Day, given that his dad, Earl Woods retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel after serving two tours of duty in Vietnam, and he didn't let the holiday pass without sending a special thank you to all the veterans out there, including his late father.

Woods posted a photo of Earl in uniform on Twitter and Instagram Monday, captioning the picture, "Thank you veterans for your selfless acts, courage and strength in protecting our freedom and keeping our country safe. Grateful to my Pops, and all of you, for your service."

Woods was hardly the only one in the golf community to thank the troops however, plenty of others flooded took to social media with shout-outs, starting with U.S. Navy vet and PGA Tour winner Billy Hurley.

Lockie Ferguson, the New Zealand fast bowler, could be in line for a Test debut after missing the final T20 internationals against England to allow him some red-ball practice for Auckland in the Plunket Shield.

New Zealand face a punishing schedule over the Christmas period with five Tests spanning just under seven weeks, and head coach Gary Stead has suggested that they will have to rotate their seam bowlers, opening up the possibility of a debut for Ferguson.

ALSO READ: Ferguson has sights set on Test breakthrough

The first two of those Tests - against England, with the series starting at Mount Maunganui on November 21 - do not form part of the World Test Championship, meaning there is less riding on them than the three-match series in Australia.

"We have five Test matches in six weeks and I'm not sure the last time a New Zealand team has ever done that," Stead told stuff.co.nz.

"We have to be really conscious of wear and tear and make sure every Test we play we have fighting fresh bowlers who can do the job for us."

Established seam-bowling trio Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Neil Wagner have been almost ever-present in home Tests since 2015 - they have played 16, 16 and 18 respectively out of a possible 19 - but given the nature of the fixture list, it is unlikely that they will be able to play in all five of the upcoming games.

Ferguson, who recently recovered from a thumb injury in time to take four wickets with an economy rate of just 7.25 in the T20I series against England, is the fastest bowler available to New Zealand, and Stead admitted that his pace made him a tempting option.

"That's the point of difference Lockie brings that other guys don't have," he said. "We have to work out our best line-up and what we think is right for the conditions, and if we fight fire with fire we'll see. There's no doubt that X-factor is an exciting prospect."

Ferguson took 4 for 23 in the first innings of Auckland's rain-affected Plunket Shield game against Wellington last week, while Matt Henry, whose ten Tests to date have been spread over four years, will also be in contention.

Stead also said that New Zealand would look to learn from how Australia managed their bowlers' workloads during the recent Ashes series in England, in which Pat Cummins was the only ever-present as the management made a point of trying to keep the seamers "cherry-ripe".

"It would be silly for us not to look at that," he said. "They did rotate their bowlers and it was horses for courses a bit.

"Like us, they have quite a bit of difference in their attack and definitely we have to consider that."

England's preparations begin with a two-day match against a New Zealand XI at Whangarei on Tuesday, before a first-class game against a New Zealand A side at the same venue on Friday.

The second fixture, against an 'A' team captained by Tom Blundell which includes 11 recent international call-ups, will only be England's fourth first-class warm-up match in six years.

England's other winter tours to South Africa and Sri Lanka include a three-day game against an 'A' team and first-class four-day warm-up against a Board President's XI respectively, emphasising a shift in focus towards Test cricket as stressed by Ashley Giles.

Sir Alastair Cook has backed Chris Silverwood to bring the same clarity to England's Test cricket that he offered to Essex during his agenda-setting spell as head coach, and believes that the team's renewed focus on the longer form of the game will help bring out the best in his own successor as Test captain, Joe Root.

Speaking to ESPNcricinfo on the eve of the New Zealand Test series, Cook acknowledged that England's once-in-a-generation opportunity to win a World Cup on home soil this summer had led to an understandable prioritisation of their white-ball fortunes. But given the challenge of winning back the Ashes in Australia in two years' time, he sees no reason why the red-ball squad shouldn't be able to reach similar heights in the coming months.

"New Zealand is a good place for Chris Silverwood and Joe Root to start a new cycle," Cook said. "It's only a two-match series, which is a bit of a shame, as their recent history has brought some cracking matches. You feel a long way away from everywhere, it doesn't have the hype of an Australia or India series, but they are a brilliant side, and it's a great but tough place to play cricket."

Though it sits outside the Future Tours Programme, and will therefore not count towards the World Test Championship, England have recognised the New Zealand series as a vital staging post as they begin to give the old format a bit of TLC - having rather muddled through this year's Ashes, drawing 2-2 thanks to moments of inspiration from Ben Stokes in particular, rather than any coherent plan for Test success.

And Cook, who stood down as captain at the end of a 4-0 defeat in India in December 2016, midway through Trevor Bayliss's four-year tenure, is sure that the arrival of Silverwood as head coach will lead to a marked improvement in Test cricket - much as he oversaw Essex's rise from the second division in 2016 to a first Championship title in 25 years the following summer.

"Clarity, that is one thing he'll bring," Cook said. "He's very clear on what he wants and it's very simple what he wants. The players will know, they'll be very well prepared, they'll know exactly what he demands of them, and he'll be a real helping hand for Joe Root, taking a lot of pressure off Root in terms of off-field stuff."

Root's role across all formats has come under particular scrutiny in recent months. While there is no question about his enduring quality as a Test cricketer, his returns have slipped from the heights in recent years, along with his average, which - in spite of four fifties in five Tests against Australia - was 47.91 by the end of this summer's Ashes, the lowest it has been for five years.

Furthermore, Root's average as captain has slipped to 40.81 in 33 matches - leading many commentators to question whether the burden of leadership is cramping his obvious style as a batsman. Cook, however, believes that a change of sidekick could be the key to unlocking his potential.

"Trevor was a very hands-off coach, and he had a lot of success," Cook said. "But there are different ways of skinning cats, and you can see that Joe needs that support around him. That's quite obvious, and Silverwood and his team will give a bit more than Trev did.

"I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but I think that's what will happen. And I think we'll see the next stage of Joe Root's England captaincy career. Looking back on my [time as captain], I think I took two and a half years to feel totally comfortable in the role, in terms of what you know, what you want from the side, and how you go about all the extra demands. Joe Root is at that kind of stage, I think he'll bat at No. 4 again, and I'm expecting another spike from him."

Cook had sympathy, too, for the extent to which Root - a key member of the World Cup-winning squad - was forced to compromise his own team's ambitions to support those of the white-ball captain, Eoin Morgan.

"I don't think Test cricket was [marginalised] when Trevor first came in for the 2015 Ashes," said Cook. "But then, as the World Cup loomed, and the instant transformation of the 50-over team after 2015 brought momentum, I can see that [was true] for the latter period, those last two years.

"But that was mainly for the players, they had that goal of being world champions, which is something no England team had done before, and at home too, so the opportunity was massive and you can see how the focus migrated that way.

"But now the challenge will be doing it in both, and there's no reason why England can't be successful, looking at the facilities we've got and the players we've got."

If England are to find any sort of consistency in Test cricket, however, then the first thing they need to address is the flimsiness of their top three. Though Cook's own returns at the top of the order tailed off in his final year of Test cricket (with the notable exception of his glorious farewell at The Oval in 2018), his absence was felt throughout a torrid summer in 2019, in which Rory Burns' diligent crease occupation was the closest that any opener came to matching the sort of resolve that Cook displayed during his 161-match, 12,472-run career.

"It's been clear over the last six months that when England have played their best cricket, the platform has been laid at the top of the order," Cook said. "And it's not been runs scored but balls faced as well. As an opener you want to score runs, no doubt, but as Goochie says, you set up games, you have the opportunity at 0 for 0 when you want out to bat, to score 150 and set up a game of cricket.

"Trevor was a very hands-off coach, and he had a lot of success. But there are different ways of skinning cats, and you can see that Joe needs that support around him"

"Rory Burns faced a hell of a lot of balls," he added. "After one bad game against Ireland [6 and 6], a certain Sky pundit [Nasser Hussain] said he'd pick 'Opener A and Opener B' for the Ashes. So he did really well in tough conditions to come back and score a hundred in the very next game, especially compared to the Australian openers."

Burns' 'Opener B' in New Zealand may well be another player who has forced his way into the reckoning through his sheer weight of runs in county cricket. And while Cook anticipates a steep learning curve should Dom Sibley make his debut in next week's first Test, he believes he's already shown promising resilience in his short but eventful county career.

"He's done everything that's been asked of him - an amazing start with a double-hundred at Surrey against Yorkshire as a 17-year-old, then a bit of a downward curve, then in and out of the side before a move to Warwickshire. He's had a bit of a journey, and he'll have that same journey in international cricket.

"You're never totally sure how he will play amid all that scrutiny - he has a slightly different technique to what is so-called 'classical', but he will do what he will do, which is face a lot of balls and hopefully leave well, and if he gets off to a good start, hopefully we'll see a guy who is what Goochie calls a 'run-maker'. He's not going to blow sides away scoring quickly, but he will take a lot of shifting, and for this England side, that's exactly what they need."

The message, Cook believes, will be that England's top three will have licence to bat all day if needs be, because that will give the strokeplayers in the middle order - the likes of Stokes, Jos Buttler and, if he earns a recall, Jonny Bairstow - all the more opportunity to turn a match in a session with their natural free-flowing games.

"I wouldn't say there were mixed messages from Rooty and Trev to play positively, but there was confusion around how England want to play their Test match cricket," said Cook. "There has to be a platform laid, and I think we'll start seeing that under Silverwood.

"The top three will be very specific in their roles. Your job is to score a hundred, and if it takes you all day, that's your job - it's not how quickly you score. If you're batting at lunch, you are putting guys into their second and third spells, and if England are very clear on that, the message will filter down in county cricket. If you want to bat in the top three for England, you've got to be able to bat a long period of time. And if you can't, you won't."

Sir Alastair Cook was speaking at an event to mark 25 years of the National Lottery, which has raised £5.7 billion for grassroots sport. #BecauseYouPlay

Former Michigan State star and Detroit Lions wide receiver Charles Rogers has died at age 38.

Rogers' former high school coaches told mlive.com that Rogers died from liver failure and that he recently was diagnosed with cancer.

"I called his mom at the hospital over the weekend and got a chance to talk to Charles," Don Durrett, Rogers' former football coach at Saginaw High School, told mlive.com. "He said he was going to the Lord."

Neither Durrett nor Marshall Thomas, the former basketball coach and athletic director at Saginaw High, specified what type of cancer Rogers was diagnosed with.

"He had cancer, whether that was related to his liver I don't know," Thomas told mlive.com. "They had given him 30 days to live if he didn't get a liver transplant."

The Lions said Monday that they "are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Charles Rogers."

"From Saginaw, to East Lansing, to Detroit, Charles' connection to the state of Michigan and its football community was felt by many during the course of his life," the Lions said in a statement. "We extend our heartfelt sympathies and condolences to his friends and family during this difficult time."

Rogers was selected by the Lions with the second overall pick in the 2003 NFL draft after two outstanding seasons at Michigan State.

Rogers' career with the Lions was derailed by season-ending injuries to his clavicle in 2003 and 2004, which limited him to a total of just six games in those seasons. He appeared in nine games for Detroit in 2005, when his season was abbreviated by a four-game drug suspension, before being released by the Lions in September 2006.

"I am very saddened to hear of Charles' passing. Charles was our first draft choice in my time with the Lions, and having the opportunity to select a premier player from Michigan State and a local Saginaw standout athlete was tremendously exciting," former Lions coach Steve Mariucci said in a statement. "In coaching Charles. his talent and ability were very evident early on in his career. I feel strongly had he not suffered unfortunate injuries, he would have gone on to become an excellent NFL wide receiver. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and I offer my deepest condolences during this difficult time."

A five-star recruit out of Saginaw High, Rogers enjoyed a record-setting two seasons at Michigan State, where he is the school's all-time leader with 27 touchdown catches. He won the Biletnikoff Award, given to the nation's best receiver, in 2002 after hauling in 68 catches for 1,351 yards and 13 touchdowns.

"We are deeply saddened to learn the news of Charles Rogers passing away. We send our condolences to his family, friends and former teammates during this difficult time," Michigan State said in a statement posted to Twitter.

Even before a startling news conference in the wake of a blowout loss to Cleveland on Sunday, New York Knicks president Steve Mills had started to lay the internal groundwork for the eventual dismissal of coach David Fizdale, league sources told ESPN.

Mills is selling owner James Dolan on a roster constructed to be highly competitive in the Eastern Conference, leaving Fizdale vulnerable to an ouster only weeks into the second season of a four-year contract that league sources say is worth $22 million.

Days before exiled star Kristaps Porzingis returns to Madison Square Garden with the Dallas Mavericks, Mills delivered the first public salvo on shaping an organizational narrative that the Knicks' struggles aren't born of an overmatched roster, but the lack of a "consistent level of effort and execution."

Rival coaches and executives see a mismatched Knicks roster slow of foot, without legitimate NBA guard play, but Mills is selling Dolan on a poorly coached team that is underachieving at 2-8 to start the season, league sources said. Around Madison Square Garden and the league, the timing and tone of the news conference was met with considerable surprise and dismay -- and it was considered to be a complete undermining of Fizdale.

"Everyone is moving to their positions now," a league source close to management and the coaching staff told ESPN. "This is how they'll make (Fizdale) the fall guy."

After the Knicks' 108-87 loss to Cleveland, Fizdale had been meeting with players in the postgame locker room when Mills led general manager Scott Perry into an impromptu news conference. It is customary for a head coach to be the first team official to talk to the media in a postgame setting, but Mills marched to the lectern to tells fans that the Knicks had fallen short of management's expectations.

"Scott and I are not happy with where we are right now," Mills said. "We think the team is not performing to the level that we anticipated or we expected to perform at, and that's something that we think we collectively have to do a better job of delivering the product on the floor..."

Mills has presided over the arrivals and departures of five Knicks coaches. His overall record as team president is 165-337, including 48-126 since taking the job over from Phil Jackson in 2017.

As an organization, the Knicks could have survived missing out on Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in July free agency -- but the trading of Porzingis to the Mavericks for role players and two first-round picks looms far more devastating to the franchise's future. Porzingis asked for a trade in February after management was unable to correct a rift with him --- or convince him of a path toward competency in the Eastern Conference.

Fizdale chose the Knicks over several other offers in 2018 -- including Atlanta, Charlotte and Phoenix -- under the assumption that he'd eventually coach Porzingis. Fizdale accepted responsibility for the team's struggles in his own postgame news conference Sunday night.

"I take the brunt of that responsibility because I am the head coach," Fizdale said. "I make these decisions -- what's happening on the court, what players play, who plays together, what plays we call the defensive system. That's on me."