I Dig Sports
Mickelson on USGA ahead of U.S. Open: 'They don't know how to control themselves'
DUBLIN, Ohio – It’s already been a tough week for the USGA following a scathing story in Golf Digest that criticized the association, but on Thursday following his round at the Memorial, Phil Mickelson didn’t have any interest in pulling his punches.
“I've played, what, 29 U.S. Opens. One hundred percent of time they have messed it up if it doesn't rain,” Mickelson said. “The rain is the governor. That's the only governor they have. And if they don't have a governor they don't know how to control themselves.”
Mickelson had been asked if he was confident that the USGA wouldn’t make any of the same mistakes that have marred the last few U.S. Opens when the championship returns to Pebble Beach in two weeks.
“It's just based on history. My 30 years, and 30 years before that. I think we're all pulling for a little rain,” Mickelson said.
Mickelson sparked controversy at last year’s U.S. Open when he raced after his putt on the 13th green while it was still moving during the third round and hit the ball on his way to a two-stroke penalty.
“My anger and frustration got the best of me,” Mickelson later said. “I'm embarrassed and disappointed by my actions. It was clearly not my finest moment and I'm sorry.”
Jessica Andrade, the UFC's newest champion, was carjacked at gunpoint Wednesday in Brazil, her manager Tiago Okamura confirmed to ESPN after Andrade posted about it on social media. MMA Fighting was the first to report the news.
Andrade was driving her Honda H-RV in Niteroi, Brazil, with her wife, Fernanda Gomes, in the passenger seat when men pulled out guns and stopped the vehicle. Okamura said the men took the car and the two women's phones, wallets and identification. He said Andrade and Gomes were unharmed in the robbery.
"In the end, we are just happy she and her wife are safe," Okamura said. "With this kind of situation, things can go south really quick, so good thing it all ended up with just material loss."
Early Thursday morning, Andrade posted to her Instagram a plea for help in finding the vehicle that was taken.
Andrade (20-6) defeated Rose Namajunas to win the UFC women's strawweight title at UFC 237 on May 11 in Rio de Janeiro. The Brazil native is on a four-fight winning streak. Andrade, 27, has just one loss dating back to 2015 and is ESPN's No. 4 ranked pound-for-pound women's MMA fighter in the world.
NEW YORK -- Swing coach Hank Haney has been suspended from the SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio channel after saying on his show Wednesday that a Korean would probably win the U.S. Women's Open and that he couldn't name six players on the LPGA Tour.
He then said he would go with "Lee," and that if he didn't have to mention a first name, "I'd get a bunch of them right."
Haney, who coached Tiger Woods for six of his majors from 2004 to 2010, apologized on Twitter later Wednesday.
A statement from the PGA Tour and SiriusXM said the comments were insensitive and do not represent the views of either party. The statement said Haney has been suspended "at the PGA Tour's instruction." Haney said he accepts the suspension and apologized again.
"The PGA TOUR is committed to and proud of the increasingly diverse makeup of our fan base," the statement read, "not to mention the power and accomplishments of the game's world-class, global players -- both on the PGA TOUR and LPGA, whom we are working with more closely than ever before. SiriusXM proudly covers and supports both women's and men's golf and the athletes that make them great."
SiriusXM said it is reviewing Haney's status going forward.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Drake didn't have to open his mouth to start trolling the Golden State Warriors ahead of Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday.
The rapper and Toronto Raptors mega-fan strolled into Scotiabank Arena wearing Dell Curry's No. 30 Raptors jersey.
Curry, the father of Warriors superstar guard Stephen Curry, finished his career playing for Toronto for three seasons from 1999 to 2002.
Steph Curry was in middle school at the time, and he lived in Toronto for about 18 months while his father played in the city.
Cauley (67) in the hunt at Muirfield one year after car accident
DUBLIN, Ohio – Bud Cauley doesn’t remember a big chunk of his last trip to central Ohio.
It was at last year’s Memorial Tournament that Cauley went from the tee sheet to a hospital room, suffering six broken ribs and a punctured lung in a car accident just around the corner from Muirfield Village Golf Club. Hours after missing the cut, the vehicle he was riding in veered off the road, hit a tree and flipped into a bank. He didn’t pick up a club for more than three months, and he didn’t play another PGA Tour event until October.
But one year after what he described as “the scariest night of my life,” Cauley is not only back in the field at the Memorial – he’s in the mix for his first Tour win after an opening-round 67 left him two shots behind leader Ryan Moore.
“I was obviously thinking about it the couple of weeks leading up to coming here,” Cauley said. “With what happened last year, obviously it’s something else I think about, too. But I was really fortunate with what happened last year to be able to come out and still play golf and do what I love to do.”
Cauley has four top-25s in 17 starts this season, highlighted by a T-10 finish in Las Vegas in November. But he’s in position to improve on that after a bogey-free opener at Muirfield Village, one in which he missed only one fairway and finished fourth in strokes gained: tee-to-green.
Cauley needed four of his six broken ribs “plated,” a procedure that lengthened his recovery and delayed his return to the game. But when he first picked up a club again at The Bear’s Club in Jupiter, tournament host Jack Nicklaus happened to be there for the start of his comeback.
“He saw the first, like, little thin wedge I hit afterwards,” Cauley recalled.
Friend and former Alabama teammate Justin Thomas visited Cauley in the hospital during last year’s tournament, and he described the night of the accident as “one of the hardest” he’s ever had.
“There were a lot of things that run through your head when something like that happens to one of your best and closest friends,” Thomas said. “I think going into the hospital and seeing him Saturday after I played just, it helped me a lot because I was just able to see him and see that he was OK.”
While he watched a video of the accident aftermath a few weeks after the crash, Cauley explained that he has no plans to return to the scene anytime soon despite its proximity to the course.
“I haven’t had any bad thoughts or anything as far as what happened last year,” Cauley said. “But I don’t think I’m going to go drive by it to test it. I don’t feel like testing myself that much.”
Cauley’s relative good fortune in recovering from his injuries is not lost on him, as he shared that the passenger sitting next to him in the car still undergoes physical therapy twice a week. But this week he’s focused on making new, positive memories in the Columbus area, eager to leave a serious accident and painful recovery in the rear-view mirror.
“It was nice to have a good score,” Cauley said. “Obviously playing well, and making the cut here is probably better for my health.”
Mickelson (70), playing with two drivers, off to good start at Memorial
DUBLIN, Ohio – Phil Mickelson is no stranger to outside-the-box thinking and on Thursday at the Memorial he added to that legacy.
Mickelson teed off at Muirfield Village for his opening round with two drivers in his bag, one he said would be used to hit “cute little cuts” and another to “hit bombs.”
“I don't see many golf courses the rest of the year where there's an advantage of flying it 325 [yards],” said Mickelson, who opened with a 2-under 70. “Here there are six of those occasions, four of them the wind will come into play. And I wanted to try to do well here but wanted to get practice in with the other (shorter) one.”
Mickelson removed his 3-wood from his bag to make room for the longer driver which he said has a shaft that is 1 ¼ inch longer than his regular driver and allows him to increase his swing speed by 4 mph.
At the 2006 Masters, Mickelson also used two drivers, and during the 2008 U.S. Open he opted not to carry a driver in his bag.
“That was a mistake, obviously,” Mickelson said of the ’08 U.S. Open. “What a great idea that was. I'm going to play with a 3-wood. And then I missed the fairways with the 3-wood. That was ridiculous. That didn't work out.”
His two-driver experiment appears to be a one-off and he said he doesn’t have any plans to use the longer driver in two weeks at the U.S. Open, where he will be looking to complete the career Grand Slam.
“I don't see it happening. I don't see me using it the rest of the year, to be honest,” he said.
Kuchar 'certainly satisfied' with par after lobbying for embedded drive
DUBLIN, Ohio – For 10 minutes, Matt Kuchar pled his case. He reviewed video of his drive landing in the 17th fairway, he reviewed the rule, he even asked for a second opinion, but the ruling remained unchanged.
Play it as it lies.
Kuchar’s drive had bounced into the fairway and rolled forward into an old pitch mark. Under the Rules of Golf, Kuchar would have been allowed to remove his ball from the pitch mark if it had been made by his shot, but not if it rolled into a preexisting pitch mark.
“When I actually saw the video of it, maybe there's potential here that it broke new ground, and I called over the rules official,” said Kuchar following his opening 73 at the Memorial. “Not sure exactly of the embedded-ball rule, as far as if a ball breaks new ground and in someone else's pitch mark, is that a new embedded ball.”
Following the lengthy discussion with the rules officials, Kuchar hit a 7-iron over the green but chipped to 9 feet and converted the par attempt.
“I'm certainly satisfied with making a [par] there. I like to think things work out the way they're supposed to,” he said. “Making 4 there is all I can ask for.”
This is the second time this year that Kuchar has been involved in an awkward ruling. At the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in March he won a hole when his opponent Sergio Garcia picked up his golf ball believing Kuchar had conceded the hole.
ANDERSON, Ind. — Kody Swanson joined an exclusive list of drivers May 25 at Anderson Speedway by scoring his third victory in the Pay Less Little 500 presented by UAW for non-winged sprint cars.
In dominating the high-banked, quarter-mile paved bullring, Swanson became the seventh driver in the 71-year history of the crown-jewel event with a hat trick or more of victories to his name.
Eric Gordon is the all-time Little 500 victory leader with nine, while Bob Frey won the race five times and Tom Cherry scored four victories. Swanson, Jeff Bloom, Jim Childers and Darl Harrison have each won the Little 500 three times.
While Swanson’s first two Little 500 victories in 2016 and ’18 were impressive, his win this year in the 71st running of the event was easily his most dominant performance yet.
Swanson started from the pole and led 344 of 500 laps en route to victory, the most laps led by a race winner since Florida’s Dave Scarborough led 347 laps and won for owner Charles Ledford in 1986.
It put a thrilling cap on a trying week for the California native, who was in contention to win the Hoosier Hundred and the Carb Night Classic with the USAC Silver Crown Series before various misfortunes squelched those opportunities.
“Going into Saturday, it had been a tough couple of nights and we’d been looking for a win that we hadn’t found yet, so we were pretty determined going into the Little 500 to make it count … because it was our last race for the weekend,” Swanson told SPEED SPORT. “Needless to say, it all came together pretty well for us. I’m glad it did, because the Little 500 is a historic race that always means a lot to win.
“I wouldn’t say that we necessarily had a chip on our shoulder, but after two Silver Crown races that didn’t fall our way, we weren’t short on motivation,” he added. “You have to put yourself in a position to win at Anderson, and both Shane (Hollingsworth) and I did that by staying up front, just like we did a year ago when I won and he finished third. This time, things just seemed to work out again for us.”
Swanson’s fast start in qualifying was a harbinger of the domination to come, as he jumped out from the pole and led the first 186 laps before making his first of two mandatory pit stops.
“I was fortunate to start from the pole and felt really good about our chances in that first stint,” Swanson recalled. “We had a little trouble on one pit stop and lost one more lap than we wanted to, but the guys stayed calm. Where we could have cross-threaded a nut on an axle that would have ended our night, they made sure to get it on right and give a chance to continue fighting for it.
“That was the point where Shane kind of controlled things, through the middle portion of the race, but once we were able to recover, we had a really fast car,” Swanson added. “We drove back through the field, caught cautions at the right times and put ourselves in position to be there when it counted.”
OSWEGO, N.Y. – Oswego Speedway officials have elected to implement double file restarts for heat and feature action in the Pathfinder Bank SBS and 350 Supermodified divisions.
Under this new format, double file restarts will be used in every event for both divisions, however the last two laps in the preliminary races and the last five laps in the main events will see single file restarts.
The leader will pick the inside or outside lane when the race director instructs the cars to double up on the one way radio. The front row will then proceed to the line in turn four side by side and receive the green flag.
If the front row does not stay together under this double file restart format, officials will go yellow and then switch over to single file on the next restart. If any competitor is determined to be at fault for two double file restart violations, he will be sent to the rear of the field.
Oswego Speedway’s 69th season continues on Saturday, June 8 when Burke’s Do It Best Home Centers and Bosco‘s presents Twin 35 features for the Novelis Supermodifieds, a 30-lap main event for the Pathfinder Bank SBS and the addition of a 30-lap special for the Sunoco New York Super Stock Series. The 350 Supers return on June 15.
LASALLE, Ill. — On its Facebook page Thursday, LaSalle Speedway management announced the facility was ceasing operations, effective immediately.
The Facebook post read, “It is with an extremely heavy and broken heart that I must report that due to the current personal events and unfortunate circumstances in my own life, I am forced to cease any and all operations at the LaSalle Speedway. I am totally unaware of what the future may hold for the speedway or the property but for now and the foreseeable future, the track is closed. I alone have had to make this decision. I refuse to comment or discuss the circumstances around this heartbreaking decision. At this time, I am asking for privacy for myself and my entire family.
“I’d like to thank all the fans for their loyalty and support over the past 26, years. To each and every racer, it truly has been a pleasure to have worked with you. Some of your friendships will always remain dear to me for a very long time. I’d like to thank all of our sponsors who have been with us all these years. To my employees, from the bottom of my heart I thank you for all your hard work and dedication. I will miss you all.
“If anyone has a refund coming for purchased tickets please call the office. Arrangements for refunds are in the process already. The office will remain open until June 7. Thank you for your patience. Warmest Regards To All. Kerry Izzo”
Earlier in the day, organizers of the annual Bill Waite Jr. Memorial Classic, which was slated for the LaSalle dirt oval on July 21, commented on Facebook that the event would not be held at LaSalle as they had met over the past weekend with LaSalle management, who informed them that the track was going to close down immediately.
The Izzo Family, headed by former Chicago area dirt late model champion Tony Izzo, took over the LaSalle third-mile oval in 1992 with the track seeing its first full season of competition promoted by the Izzo group in 1993. Previously, it had been known as Tommy’s LaSalle Speedway and operated by Tommy Glynn for about four years, beginning in 1986.
The speedway hosted weekly racing through the 2016 season when it went to a specials-only format. The Waite Memorial and the track’s annual Thaw Brawl in late March highlighted the LaSalle specials. With LaSalle absent from the schedule in recent years, the DIRTcar UMP Summer Nationals dirt late model tour was to return to LaSalle this year on July 3.
The track was located at the site of an old outdoor theatre with the huge movie screen still there when the stock cars raced. Before that, the property was the former site of the old Tri-City Speedway, which hosted midget and hot rod races in the 1940s.
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