PGA Tour primed for big second half
The PGA Tour began the second half of the season at the Texas Open, with Andrew Landry becoming the seventh first-time winner.
Never mind that it feels as though the season is just getting started.
Still to come are three majors and The Players Championship. Not to be overlooked are the FedEx Cup playoffs. Quibble about points and prestige, but they deliver four tournaments over five weeks of the top available players.
Most sports prefer to become more relevant the closer they get to the finish line, so that’s one benefit of the PGA Tour’s wraparound season.
The opening 22 weeks featured one major and three World Golf Championships, one of them in Shanghai last October, the other two in March separated by two weeks. Justin Thomas, Bubba Watson and Patton Kizzire are multiple winners. Dustin Johnson should be. Jordan Spieth would settle for one victory at this point.
The first half did a good job setting the table for what should be a compelling five months.
Battle for No. 1
Not long after Dustin Johnson closed with a 67 at the RBC Heritage, he left for the Bahamas as part of a threeweek break. His tie for 16th at Hilton Head was important. It assured Johnson of staying at No. 1 for a few more weeks, but maybe not by the time he returns at TPC.
He will be No. 1 for at least 62 weeks, significant in that only three other players have stayed atop the world ranking longer since it began in 1986 — Nick Faldo (81 weeks), Greg Norman (96 weeks) and Tiger Woods (264 weeks and 281 weeks).
It might not last much longer. Thomas, who could have replaced Johnson by winning his semifinal match in the Dell Technologies Match Play, gets another chance next week at the Wells Fargo Championship. That’s at Quail Hollow, where Thomas won the PGA Championship last summer.
With so many big tournaments coming up, a halfdozen players are in the mix for No. 1 by the end of the season.
Best season
Patrick Reed can easily claim this because of that green jacket. Winning the Masters makes it a great year no matter what else happens, and Reed will have a hard time topping this one even if he wins all five Ryder Cup matches in France.
Three others are worthy of consideration.
Thomas faced a most difficult encore after he won five times last season, including his first major, the PGA Championship, and the FedEx Cup. He has backed it up so far with two victories.
Watson won against two strong fields at Riviera and Match Play. Kizzire won’t get as much recognition from winning at the OHL Classic at Mayakoba in the fall and the Sony Open in January. But he went head-to-head in beating Rickie Fowler in Mexico and won a six-hole playoff on Oahu.
Tiger anniversary
One year ago, the Texas Open was the same week Woods had his fourth back surgery, and all sorts of speculation followed. Would he ever play again? Did he even want to play again? And if he did, how much would fusion surgery limit him?
The answers: Yes, yes and not much.
He recorded a swing speed of 129 mph. He was runner-up by one shot at the Valspar Championship. The he tied for 32nd at the Masters.
The revivals
Even as the PGA Tour gets younger, five players in their 40s managed to win. Phil Mickelson tops the list. Ian Poulter isn’t too far behind.
His victory drought approaching five years, Mickelson got a playoff victory in the Mexico Championship.
Poulter forced a playoff in Houston and won on the first extra hole to get into the Masters.
The College Basketball Commission’s long-awaited recommendations arrived on Wednesday morning. Led by Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state and Stanford provost, the commission spent the past seven months developing solutions to address the myriad problems in college basketball, which has been in a crisis since September amid an FBI investigation that has exposed the sport’s corruption.
The highlights of the Rice Commission’s recommendations:
1. It calls for an end to the so-called “one-anddone” rule.
The one-and-done rule, which requires players to be one year removed from their high school graduating class before entering the NBA draft, is, in fact, an NBA rule, one that the NCAA and its member schools have no control over.
Still, Rice and the other 13 members of the College Basketball Commission have called on the NBA to end the rule, saying that the “downsides now outweigh any benefits” in college basketball. Some college programs, Duke and Kentucky, especially, have become known in recent years for their reliance on freshmen who play one season before entering the NBA draft. The Rice Commission views the oneand-done model as a problem for college basketball, because the players who use it are often seen as commodities – by shoe companies, by agents – before they even arrive in college.
“These uniquely talented players are the focus of agents, apparel companies, investment advisors, college coaches and others seeking to profit from their skills and offering them cash and other benefits in hope of future gain.”
2. If the one-and-done rule doesn’t end, then ... freshmen ineligibility?
The commission has called for the NBA to end one-anddone by the end of 2018. If it doesn’t happen, Rice alluded that pulled the Spurs within 93-89, and then a pair of free throws at 57.2 to make it a two-point game. Green responded with a long jumper at the top of the key then made two free throws with 9.1 seconds remaining.
The Warriors will face New Orleans in the West semifinals with Game 1 Saturday at Oracle Arena, having smoothly eliminated the Spurs aside from a brief Game 4 blip Sunday at San Antonio. New Orleans, coached by former Golden State top assistant Alvin Gentry, swept Portland in the first round.
Durant didn’t have his usual steady shooting night, going 8 for 19 and missing his initial six 3-point tries. That hardly mattered. After a rebound late in the first half, the reigning Finals MVP drove coast-to-coast for a huge two-handed slam that helped Golden State grab momentum.
Aldridge had 30 points and 12 rebounds, and Patty Mills added 18 points with four 3-pointers for cold-shooting San Antonio. Manu Ginobili had 10 points and seven assists in what might have been the 16th-year pro’s final game at age 40.
The Spurs fought for and without coach Gregg Popovich, away from the team following the death of his wife, Erin, last week following a long illness.
“I think it speaks highly of the character and spirit of this team, of never giving up, of competing until the very end,” Pau Gasol said. “And it was a game and a situation where we easily could have just thrown the towel to “other tools” that might be at the NCAA’s disposal. She said if the one-and-done rule isn’t removed, the committee would reconvene and consider what else could be done to address the problems the rules creates.
Among those, Rice said, would be consideration of the so-called “baseball model,” in which college baseball players are required to remain in college for three years. Another possibility, Rice said, would be freshman ineligibility, which would take college basketball back to its roots, somewhat. Freshmen were ineligible in college basketball, decades ago, but that rule went away in 1972.
Could freshmen ineligibility really come back? Doubtful, but the Rice Commission’s take on the oneand-done rule underscores a growing disdain for that model, and the perception that it needs to be changed.
3. College players who enter the NBA draft, and aren’t drafted, should remain eligible.
No question, this will be the most popular of the commission’s recommendations. It’s one that has been batted around for a while but, for whatever reason, hasn’t gained much traction.
If the Rice Commission’s recommendations come to fruition, then college players who enter the NBA draft but aren’t drafted can return to school, so long as they don’t sign a professional contract. There are some conditions: the player has to return to the same school, and he has to receive an evaluation from the NBA’s Undergraduate Advisory Committee before entering the draft.
For players, there’s no downside to this. They can enter the draft, not get drafted and have the safety net of returning to college – so long as they don’t sign a pro contract. College coaches, though, might grumble.
The NBA draft is in mid-tolate June. This year, it’s June 21. By then, coaches – who, by nature, are all sticklers who love to have as much control as possible – will want to know who’s on their rosters for next season. This proposal, at different points. But we didn’t. So that’s something that we can be proud of.”
Thompson swished a turnaround fadeaway as the halftime buzzer sounded and scurried for the tunnel hands raised high in triumph as Curry celebrated alongside his Splash Brother. Thompson hit 11 of 22 shots, his fourth time shooting at least 50 percent in the series.
Thompson became the if it passes, makes that more difficult. It could create a scenario in which many more players enter the draft, creating more uncertainty for coaches who will now wonder whether a player is really gone, or whether he might return based on what happens during the draft.
For the players, though, this proposal affords a lot more flexibility.
4. Players should be allowed to work with agents to better understand their pro prospects.
The commission recommended that the NCAA and its members “develop strict standards” for certifying agents, and allowing NCAA-certified agents to work with high school prospects and offer guidance about whether they should enter college, or pursue a professional career.
From the Rice Commission’s report: “Elite high school and college players need earlier professional advice, including whether to declare for the draft or whether college basketball offers a superior pathway. If NCAA rules do not allow them to receive that advice openly, they will often seek it illicitly.”
The commission has recommended that college players be allowed to sign with NCAA-certified agents, while retaining their eligibility. Currently, it’s against NCAA rules for athletes to sign with agents. Among the long-assumed revelations in the FBI investigations have been black-and-white details about how agents attempt to induce athletes and their families while the athletes are still in high school.
5. Much harsher NCAA penalties are coming, as is an overhaul of how academic fraud is handled, if the Rice Commission has its way.
The commission essentially called for an overhaul of how the NCAA handles “complex and serious” infractions cases. The commission, for one, recommended that the NCAA create independent bodies to investigate and decide those cases.
Secondly, it called for much more severe penalties. third Warriors player ever to make 600 field goals in the postseason, and Golden State won its 12th straight playoff game at Oracle Arena.
Thoughts with Pop: The Warriors congratulated the Spurs for their efforts under the difficult circumstances as Popovich mourns.
“What they were going through the last week was awful,” Thompson said. “I can’t imagine how hard it How severe? Well, a case that includes allegations of Level I violations, which are the most serious, could come with a penalty of a five-year postseason ban. The commission also called for harsher “financial penalties” for Level I violations. Those, according to the commission, would include the loss of all revenue sharing in post-season play, including the NCAA tournament, for the length of the ban.
The commission also addressed how academic fraud cases should be handled. It recommended that the NCAA “revise and clarify its role in addressing academic fraud or misconduct by member institutions and make application of those rules consistent.”
The commission did not specifically address the recent UNC case, which resulted in no NCAA sanctions at the end of a long-running investigation into how questionable African Studies courses helped athletes maintain their eligibility. Clearly, though, the commission addressed one of UNC’s arguments against penalties: that the courses in question were available to all students, and not just athletes.
Initially, UNC described the case, to its accrediting agency, as one involving academic fraud. The accrediting agency, meanwhile, determined that the classes lacked integrity, and they landed the university on one year of probation.
Later, though, UNC argued that the case did not fit the NCAA’s definition of academic fraud, in part, it argued, because the classes were available to non-athletes.
The Rice Commission addressed that argument, writing: “Member institutions cannot be permitted to defend a fraud or misconduct case on the ground that all students, not just athletes, were permitted to ‘benefit’ from that fraud or misconduct. Coaches, athletic directors and university presidents must be held accountable for academic fraud about which they knew or should have known.” is to go out there and perform under those circumstances.”
Spurs assistant Ettore Messina coached San Antonio for a third straight playoff game.
“Pop, if you’re watching out there, we love you,” Kerr said.
“Our whole team and coaching staff has been thinking about you every day. Your team reflected who you are tonight.”