A reminder of why we miss sports
High drama at Colonial a welcome sight as baseball’s squabble keeps dragging on
We’ve passed the three-month anniversary of the lockdown but not sure if anyone feels like celebrating. In the meantime, here are the Monday morning musings and meditations on the world of sports to lighten your load.
• The Charles Schwab Challenge featured a field worthy of a major on an iconic venue, a stacked leaderboard which ended with a playoff and enough storylines to satisfy even the most casual fan.
It’s been a while since we’ve been able to sit down and watch a live sporting event on a Sunday but The Chuck delivered on just about every front.
In the end, Daniel Berger bested Collin Morikawa on the first extra hole after he birdied 18 to get into the playoff and Morikawa missed a six-footer to win the title on the final green. Throw in a cruel lip out by Xander Schauffele on the 17th hole which would have landed him in the playoff and you had high drama at The Colonial.
Still, for all that, it was hard to take your eyes of Bryson DeChambeau and his attempt to reinvent the game.
If you missed it, DeChambeau came back from the three-month layoff 20 pounds heavier and two shirt sizes larger. He’s now put on some 40 pounds in the last nine months and the extra bulk is producing jaw-dropping distance.
In Thursday’s first round, DeChambeau averaged 345 yards off the tee with this driver. On Friday, he was within 100 yards of the green with his approach on 10 holes. He finished the tournament 14-under, one shot out of the playoff but Colin Montgomerie, among others, said the game’s ruling body will have to legislate against DeChambeau’s length.
“It’s great to see athleticism in the game but this is a whole new game we’re beginning to witness,” Monty said on BBC radio. “It’s now brute force and a sand wedge. Something has to be done or these classic courses can’t be used.”
Montgomerie favours an idea endorsed by Jack Nicklaus in which pros use a ball that goes 80 per cent as far as a current ball.
That sounds simple enough but the reality is a little more complicated. Whatever the PGA decides, DeChambeau will be the story in golf for the foreseeable future.
• Just so you know, this weekend we could have been watching the Stanley Cup Final, the NBA Finals and the first week of the CFL regular season. But that four-year old strongman competition was it’s own kind of exciting.
• Don’t how much longer I’m going to be in this dodge and when I leave there are a lot of things I won’t miss. But I will miss the Olympic athletes and their stories.
The latest was Brent Hayden, the freestyle sprinter from Mission who’s attempting a comeback after seven years away from competition. At the 2012 Olympics in London, Hayden was the oldest swimmer in the field when he won bronze in the 100 metres. He was 28. If he makes it to Tokyo next summer, he’ll be 37.
He first joined the national team in 2002 which means some of the swimmers he’ll be competing against next summer weren’t born when he started his career.
It’s a rich story, made richer by Hayden’s perspective and motivation and while an Olympic medal isn’t the end game in his journey, he did say: “That would be amazing. I’ll let you know how it feels.”
• And finally, there’s a story from the NHL archives concerning two players who weren’t exactly popular with the rest of the league who were about to scrap.
Can’t remember who the combatants were — though it’s a good bet Matthew Barnaby was one — but as they were circling each other, a voice from one of the benches called out to the linesmen, “Let them go. Maybe they’ll both lose.”
Does that remind anyone else of the beef between Major League Baseball and the players’ union?
Over the weekend, the PA essentially called the owners bluff, saying if you want to implement a shortened season, fine. We’ll play then we’ll see how things go in the next CBA negotiation in a year.
The owners, meanwhile, continue to go to their traditional playbook, saying the players demands will crush the league. This came as news was breaking about a reported US$3.29 billion extension — $470 million annually — with Turner Sports. Coupled with a $5.1-billion extension with FOX which runs through 2028, MLB would be raking in $1.55 billion a year with another deal set to be negotiated with ESPN, the third national rights holder.
According to Forbes, that would push the total value of the national TV deal to over $2 billion annually.
That this is happening at all is difficult to process. That it’s happening against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic is incomprehensible.
The position of MLB — and the NHL come to think of it — is fans will always return after a work stoppage and there’s ample precedent to support that conceit.
But this time it feels differently. This time it feels like the fans have had enough. Who can blame them?