Mickelson struggles with driver in 2020 debut at La Quinta

Danielle Kang is off to a strong start in the new LPGA Tour season

If you were already tired of hearing about the MLB's sign-stealing scandal, you might want to find a hole, crawl in it and not come out for the next few days. It's about to get much, much worse.
Before the news of Carlos Beltran stepping down even had a chance to get cold, Beltran's niece, or someone everyone has assumed is Beltran's niece, sent out two tweets about José Altuve and Alex Bregman, two of the Houston Astros' biggest stars. According to the mystery tweeter, both Bregman and Altuve had devices underneath their jerseys that buzzed, and the devices were controlled by a “hallway video guy”:
https://twitter.com/Jomboy_/status/1217886556263940098
In her second tweet, you'll see she refers to Altuve not wanting his jersey ripped off after “Chapman gave up homer.” She is of course talking about Altuve's walk-off, ALCS-clinching homer off New York Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman in Game 6 that sent the Astros to the World Series. Immediately, Twitt..

Normally, I'd open this post with a bunch of digs at the New York Mets as an organization. I'd laugh at their sad fans, and I'd reminisce about times they've made me laugh in the past. Maybe I'd even make the same god-awful “Carlos Beltran never lost a game as Mets manager” joke that everyone is making. But, and I think I speak for a lot of fans of other teams, I genuinely feel bad for the Mets right now.
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For those who haven't heard, Beltran, a member of the 2017 Houston Astros, stepped down as Mets manager in wake of the MLB's sign-stealing scandal, which has also claimed the jobs of A.J. Hinch and Alex Cora. Beltran was the only player named in commissioner Rob Manfred's report that was released on Monday, which was focused on the Astros and Red Sox. He was expected to face no discipline, but on Thursday he and the Mets announced they had mutually agreed to part ways. “I'm..

If you're not familiar with the oeuvre of Josh Kelley—better known by his Instagram alias @holeinonetrickshots—you should be. He's the Quentin Tarantino of golf trick shots. He's one of The Loop's personal favorites and has taken home the trick-shot-of-the-year hardware to prove it. But for his latest full-length feature, Kelley has turned to more ambitious fare than usual, dedicating eight-hole minutes to the most challenging trick shot sub-genre of them all:
Jenga.
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You might remember Jenga, albeit fuzzily, from your college bar days, teetering precariously next to Trivial Pursuit and a table full of $1 Long Island Iced Teas. But Kelley has breathed new life into the vertical game of chicken, using an array of ricochets, skips, and stingers to knock the all-important block from the tower of equally important blocks. His first-ever Jenga trick shot—which we're embedding below in case you&#0..

Ryan Palmer interacted with Twitter commenters after being criticized at the Sony Open, and the fallout, like so many examples before, was predictably ugly

Golf instruction truths: Watching the world's best players like Brooks Koepka can help your game, if you know what to look for

Ross KinnairdA day after Bryson DeChambeau's comments about Brooks Koepka's abs (yes, that is a strange phrase to type), Brooks fired back with a savage photo that can be summed up by just one word: Scoreboard!
OK, let's back up, because, again, this isn't your typical feud between golfers. On Wednesday, DeChambeau was seen and heard during a live Twitch stream (again, strange times) talking smack about Brooks' bod in his ESPN Body Issue photoshoot last year. Here's the clip, in case you missed it:
https://twitter.com/EPatGolf/status/1217488284944883714
“In [ESPN's] Body Issue he didn't even have any abs, I can tell you that,” DeChambeau says. “I got some abs.” Unfortunately for Bryson, the Body Issue is no more, but we're inclined to believe him based on the fact he told reporters in Abu Dhabi earlier this week that he has been working out three-and-a-half hours per day this off-season and that he's bulked up some 30 pounds. Still. . …

We've seen Rickie Fowler go undercover before as Dick Fowler, P.I., but this time, instead of busting naughty golfers, he's helping out unsuspecting ones. Well, sort of.
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In a new pair of Farmers Insurance ads that time nicely with next week's Farmers Insurance Open, the PGA Tour star dons a Zach Galifianaki-esque beard and takes on the identity of “Richard Flower,” a chatty caddie. And this affable alter ego is eager to help golfers with everything from reading greens to swing advice to a chipping lesson that involves players hiking up their pants. Check them out:
Our favorite exchange has to be when one unsuspecting golfer asks, “How long have you been a caddie?” Fowler quickly shoots back, “Longer than you've been alive.”
Anyway, good stuff, Rickie. Farmers clearly hasn't been giving you enough speaking lines through the years.
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Odyssey to debut five new models that feature same alignment system developed for golf balls, also will expand Stroke Lab Black family