LOS ANGELES – Competitors at the U.S. Open are adamant that the recent PGA Tour-PIF agreement won’t cause any distractions. There’s too much at stake, with future legacies to be reshaped and a career-defining achievement on the table.

But for Colin Morikawa, it’s his past providing the necessary motivation to fight off any unnecessary mental intrusions.

“This is a major that I cared about when I was in college and I knew about LACC hosting a U.S. Open,” Morikawa said Tuesday. “I didn't know where my path was going to be. I didn't know if I was going to be on Tour, if I was going to have to qualify for this, and, right, four years, pretty much four years since I've been pro.

“I didn't know where I was going to be, but this is the one that I wanted to make it and be at just because it is home for me. This week means so much. It always will be. It'll always be really special.”

The Los Angeles native, and graduate of La Cañada High School, started this special week by staying at his parents’ house Saturday night. It was just a 45-minute drive, without traffic, to get to LACC Sunday to officially begin his preparation.

And much of that preparation will rely on past memories. Morikawa first saw the course in 2016, anticipating his inclusion in the following year’s Walker Cup. He went undefeated that year, with fond recollections of a certain 8-and-7 victory alongside Norman Xiong to open the competition.

“I have good memories, good shots out here, which is going to be nice to kind of go back on hopefully and hit some of those,” Morikawa said.

If Morikawa is to find himself in contention this week, he’ll have to brush aside a back injury that led him to withdraw from the final round of the Memorial Tournament two weeks ago. The two-time major champion was just two shots off the lead entering Sunday’s play in Dublin, Ohio, when he tweaked something while doing some morning "reactive exercises."

“Who knows (what) could have happened, but it's very unfortunate. It sucked,” Morikawa said. “It's a course that I loved. I took a few days off, got some rest, got some rehab, talked with my team, we got started hitting balls late last week, and we're swinging fine.”

The swing is fine, but Morikawa admits his routine on tee shots might look a little weird this week. As the old-man advice goes: bend with the knees, not the back.

“I pretty much squat down and tee it up,” he said. 

On Sunday, he hopes the only strain on his back comes from lifting the trophy.

LOS ANGELES – Brooks Koepka enjoys the chaos.

Don’t believe him? Just look at his major record for proof.

On an Erin Hills layout deemed too easy for a U.S. Open? He won.

What about Shinnecock Hills, the subject of much criticism for its perceived unfairness? He won there, too.

How about battling Tiger Woods at Bellerive, or fending off Dustin Johnson and the pro-DJ New York crowd at Bethpage, or silencing the naysayers and anti-LIV faction at Oak Hill? Win, win and win.

“The more chaotic things get, the easier it gets for me,” Koepka said. 

“Everything starts to slow down, and I am able to focus on whatever I need to focus on while everybody else is dealing with distractions, worried about other things.”

So, while other players appeared slightly uncomfortable, or at least cautious, in fielding – or in some cases not answering – the handful of questions about the recent PGA Tour-PIF deal, Koepka expressed no guilt for swiftly swatting those inquiries down during his pre-U.S. Open presser on Tuesday morning at Los Angeles Country Club.

Koepka was asked more than a half-dozen merger- or LIV-specific questions, and other than revealing that he ran into Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler at Bear’s Club in Jupiter, Florida, about 30 minutes after last week’s news broke, he made it clear that he’s here to win a third U.S. Open – and sixth major overall.

Nothing else matters.

“I'm not going to go into the future. I don't have a crystal ball with me,” Koepka said. “I'm just worried about the U.S. Open. If I can get to No. 6 pretty quick, that would be nice.”

Now healthy and re-infused with that major-killing confidence after his Masters runner-up and PGA victory this year, Koepka doesn’t want to stop there, either.

Like Koepka said two weeks ago at the LIV event outside of Washington, D.C., he still has lofty major goals.

“Double digits, that's what I'm trying to get to,” Koepka said. “I don't think it's out of the question for me.”

Based on his D.N.A., and his track record, it’s impossible to rule that out.

Jurgen Klopp is a "very important reason" why Alexis Mac Allister chose to sign for Liverpool, the World Cup-winning midfielder told ESPN Argentina.

Mac Allister, 24, was a transfer target for Chelsea and Manchester United but joined the Reds on a permanent transfer from Brighton last week having spoken with Liverpool manager Klopp.

- Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)

"I had the opportunity to speak with him [Klopp]," Mac Allister said. "It was one of the most important reasons why I took the decision so early in the transfer window. I saw his desire to have me and his desire to continue to win titles for the club, so for me it was very important.

"We spoke about football, his vision and his wish that the club continues to grow and wins championships."

The Argentina international was a key figure for Brighton, scoring 12 goals and setting up three more this past season to help the club secure Europa League qualification for the first time.

Mac Allister, 24, also impressed at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, starting in all but one of Argentina's matches as they won the competition for the first time since 1986. The former Boca Juniors star is determined to make a big impact at Anfield.

"I'm at a very good stage of my career," Mac Allister said. "I want to make the most of this opportunity. To arrive to one of the biggest clubs in the world and the biggest in England is a great joy and a dream for me. I feel that joining Liverpool was the right step for me to take, not just because of the present but because of the history that it has and the passion that it transmits.

"Liverpool is the Boca [Juniors] of England. I can't wait to play there."

Mac Allister knows it will be tough to compete for honours against Manchester City.

Pep Guardiola's side completed a treble on Saturday, with their first Champions League trophy added to their Premier League and FA Cup successes.

"They show in every game what a great team they are and it's very difficult to beat them," Mac Alister said of City. "Now they will play with the status of being Champions League holders and every team is going to want to beat them more than ever. It's going to be a great rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester City, more than in previous years."

Mac Allister, meanwhile, believes Argentina teammate Lionel Messi's decision to join Inter Miami CF will have a major impact on Major League Soccer.

The Argentina captain, whose contract with Paris Saint-Germain expires on June 30, turned down offers from former club Barcelona and from Saudi Arabia.

"Decisions are very personal and if he took them, it's because he feels that way and believes it's the best thing for his life and his career," Mac Allister said. "Hopefully, I can enjoy it a lot. It's a league that has been growing and that many players have the desire to play there, so I have no doubts that it will give MLS a leap in quality."

Having to work with Matt Patricia again could have been awkward for the Philadelphia Eagles' Darius Slay, who once said he "lost all respect" for his former head coach with the Detroit Lions.

However, Slay told the Detroit Free Press on Monday that he and Patricia have been "cordial" now that they are again working for the same organization.

"It's another day at the office," Slay told the newspaper while at Calvin Johnson's charity golf tournament in Michigan. "We both got the same goal, just going out there to compete and win a championship, so that's the main focus."

The Lions traded Slay to the Eagles in March 2020, before what would be Patricia's third and final season as the team's coach. After he was traded, Slay discussed how his relationship with Patricia had soured.

Slay said in 2020 that the fallout happened from two instances in 2018, Patricia's first season as the Lions' coach. The first was a one-on-one meeting where Patricia told him he wasn't "elite."

"I'm like, 'Huh?' I said, 'Huh.' I'm trying to see where he's coming at. He said I wasn't an elite corner and that I'm not in their category. I was coming off an All-Pro year, eight picks," Slay said. "That told me right there that he didn't have no respect for me. He told me I was a good player, but then to tell me what I'm not, so I said, OK. I just took that to the chin and said, 'OK, that's cool.'

"Then I bounced back to two back-to-back Pro Bowlers on him. Let him know how elite I was."

The second instance, which occurred during a team meeting after a training camp practice, is where Slay said he lost all respect for Patricia. After the practice, Slay posted a picture on social media about him and a receiver (who he declined to name) who caught some passes on him. Patricia, according to Slay, put the picture along with a small highlight tape of said player on the board and essentially told him to stop kissing up to another player, although the coach used a more profane analogy.

"Yeah. Right there, after that, that's when all my respect went out the door for him. As a man," Slay said.

Two other players in the room, who asked to remain anonymous, corroborated Slay's version of events to ESPN's Michael Rothstein in 2020. Patricia, in a statement to Rothstein in 2020, declined to go into detail.

The Eagles hired Patricia as a senior defensive analyst in April. Slay will be entering his fourth season with the Eagles in 2023 and has been selected to the Pro Bowl in each of the past two seasons.

Free agent safety Adrian Amos is signing a one-year deal worth up to $4 million with the New York Jets, a source told ESPN's Jeremy Fowler on Tuesday.

Amos becomes the latest former Green Bay Packers player to join quarterback Aaron Rodgers in New York, following receivers Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb and offensive lineman Billy Turner.

With the Jets, he'll join a safety depth chart that is topped by Jordan Whitehead and Chuck Clark, who was acquired in a trade with the Baltimore Ravens this offseason.

"The safety group, I'm excited about it, and I don't think you can lose TA [Tony Adams] and some of the other guys that we have in that room," defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich said recently. "It's going to be a great competition for those two spots."

The Jets also have 2020 third-round pick Ashtyn Davis, whose roster spot appears in jeopardy. Whitehead was thought to be in danger at the start of the offseason, but he recently restructured his contract, all but solidifying a spot.

Amos, 30, was the model of consistency and reliability for the Packers since he signed a four-year, $36 million contract as a free agent in 2019.

He started every game over the past four seasons and finished in the top three in tackles on the Packers in each of those years.

He's one of only four defensive players in the NFL to start all 82 regular-season games over the past five years, joining Kevin Byard, Leonard Floyd and Devin McCourty, who retired after the 2022 season.

Last season, he finished second on the Packers with 102 tackles. Amos' 148 solo tackles over the last two seasons rank third in the NFL among defensive backs behind Harrison Smith (149) and Jalen Thompson (158).

He played his first four seasons for the Chicago Bears, who picked him in the fifth round of the 2015 draft.

He's never been a big takeaways player, but seven of his 10 career interceptions came during his four seasons in Green Bay.

ESPN's Rich Cimini and Rob Demovsky contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES -- Masters champion Jon Rahm said some PGA Tour players feel "a bit of betrayal from management" in the wake of the announced alliance of the tour, the DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.

"It gets to a point where you wanna have faith in management," Rahm said during his U.S. Open news conference Tuesday. "I wanna have faith that this is the best case for us, but that's clearly not the consensus."

The No. 2-ranked player in the world said he was taking care of his children when he found out about the news of the deal and was as surprised as anyone about the development.

"It's not easy as a player to wake up and see this bombshell," Rahm said.

When asked if he felt as if the PGA Tour had taken player opinion into account as it embarked on a deal that could theoretically further change the nature of the game, Rahm explained his frustration.

"I think, to an extent, they value player opinion," he said. "They've certainly heard us throughout the whole process on some of the issues.

"But we're certainly in a spot in time where there's a big question mark. Where we don't have the answers we would like. It's hard to say."

As players arrived at this year's U.S. Open, they have not shied away from expressing their surprise and their lack of knowledge when it comes to the latest development in golf's evolution. The party line seems to be that they don't have enough information about the proposed framework deal to comment on its merits, but they are commenting on the communication gap between the tour's leadership and its members without singling out PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan.

"We want to know the why," Collin Morikawa said. "I think there's so many different parties involved that there's too many answers to really put it into one underlying umbrella of the why, because I think what you've seen from the players versus what you've seen from maybe our commissioner versus the board versus Yasir [Al-Rumayyan] versus LIV versus -- there's a lot of parties involved. Everyone has had a kind of different answer and different reaction to all this."

Rahm co-signed that sentiment, adding that it's tougher still that this is a discussion in the midst of a major he's trying to win.

"I really know as much as you guys know, to be honest," said reigning Open Championship winner Cam Smith, who is a LIV player. "I haven't been told much at all. I'm just taking it as it goes along."

LIV players on site have also expressed a certain level of surprise at the news of the alliance. Smith said he found out about it 10 minutes before the interview between Monahan and Al-Rumayyan aired on CNBC. Others, like Dustin Johnson, seem to have more concrete answers. The 2016 U.S. Open winner said in an interview with Golf Channel that he believes that not only will LIV remain under the new partnership but the schedule will not change this season or next.

"That's the plan, I've talked to the guys," Johnson said. "I just hope we can get all the best players in the world playing at the same time in golf tournaments. Obviously it's a little split right now."

Brooks Koepka, meanwhile, said Tuesday that he has taken a different approach, ignoring the uncertainty altogether. The 2023 PGA Championship winner, who found out about the news while at the Grove XXIII -- Michael Jordan's golf course -- professes that he's not thinking about what's happening outside his major championship bubble. Instead, he's thinking about how to win his sixth major.

"I wasn't going to waste any time on news that happened last week," Koepka said.

When asked whether he felt vindicated, Koepka shrugged. "It didn't matter to me. Like I said, I'm trying to focus on this week. I think that's why I've been really good at majors, honestly."

Rahm, for his part, is trying to do the same. As he explained Tuesday, he has reached the point of not necessarily having a strong opinion on where the proposed deal takes the game. He just wants to get there.

"Too much has gone on," Rahm said. "I think, like everybody, we just want some answers and basically to know what the future looks like, and that's about it. I just want to know how it's going to look like, and that's about it."

Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios was beaten in his first singles match since October after having knee surgery.

Elsewhere, American Venus Williams' return to grass-court action ended in defeat by Celine Naef at the Libema Open in the Netherlands.

The 42-year-old former world number one lost 3-6 7-6 (6-3) 6-2 to Naef, 25 years younger at 17 years old.

With her sister Serena watching on in the crowd, Williams, who was handed a wildcard for the tournament, started brightly to take the first set.

Naef took a closely fought second via the tie-break and she was then able to ease through the final set.

Williams was making her first competitive appearance since the Auckland Open in January, where she reached the last 16 before losing to China's Zhu Lin.

Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles - Wimbledon on five occasions and the US Open twice.

Kyrgios had not competed this season after having surgery to repair a small tear in his left lateral meniscus in January.

"I wouldn't say it was major surgery, but I had quite a serious surgery on my knee," Kyrgios said on Saturday. "It's taken me about five months to get back to even playing, moving and [ready to play] against these players.

"It's been difficult, but at times it's been amazing just to be home with my family.

"Tennis is a sport where you travel so much of the year and being home, for me, was important. But seeing everyone [else] play wasn't easy at times. I'm just super excited that my knee is a bit better and I'm able to play now."

Kyrgios reached his first Grand Slam singles final at Wimbledon last July, losing in four sets to Novak Djokovic. This year's Wimbledon tournament begins on Monday, 3 July.