AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) All three marveled at Tiger Woods as youngsters, then grew up and staked their own place in the game.

Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm and Jordan Spieth are stars at every tour stop, ranked Nos. 2, 3 and 4 in the world. But this week at the Masters brings an eerily familiar sight.

Though the game’s once most-dominating player sits well below the trio – at 103rd in those same rankings – they’re all looking up at Tiger Woods again.

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”I know he wants to make another run at us young guns. And some of the older guys,” Thomas said, without naming names, ”have been winning lately, so I guess we need to try to get our little streak back.

”But it’s great for golf, great for him and I’d cherish the opportunity to be potentially going down the stretch with him to win a tournament or a major, so who knows?” he added.

Much has been made of the stories passed on from their elders, how unbeatable Woods was coming down the stretch.

”Anybody that played agains..

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) A new women’s amateur tournament will be played partially at Augusta National the week before the Masters.

Masters chairman Fred Ridley announced the tournament Wednesday, calling it a move to help grow the game of golf. It will be called the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

The tournament will be played over three rounds, with the first two at the Champions Retreat outside Augusta and the final round played on the Saturday before the Masters at the famed Augusta National course.

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Ridley said Masters officials believe it will be the most widely attended amateur tournament in the world, and by a large margin. The field will consist of 72 women invited by the Masters.

The Masters also hosts a youth putt, chip and drive contest on the Sunday before the Masters.

James Harden is the NBA's likely MVP and a member of the league's best team right now (emphasis on right now while the Warriors play possum). But when it comes to showing off his dance moves, he gets shy like the rest of us.
Ahead of Tuesday night's game, Harden broke out a few of his best moves (most involved pump fakes so he was basically practicing) while sitting on the Rockets' bench. But the Toyota Center's cameras caught him in action and showed him on the arena's jumbotron. The results — both Harden's dancing and him realizing his spot had been blown up — were hilarious. Check it out:
https://twitter.com/HoustonRockets/status/981321054500065280
Betrayed in his own arena. That's pretty cold. But Houston stayed hot, drubbing the Wizards, 120-104, behind Harden's 38 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists. Don't worry, James. When you put up numbers like that, you can dance any way you want.
RELATED: Watch James Harden make the most ..

The Dallas Mavericks have had a crap season. On the floor, they've been a bonafide lottery contender and off it, a PR disaster, with reports of sexual harassment, racism, and other assorted ugliness ripping through their front office like a bandsaw. There has been one glimmer of light for Mavs fans, however, and that's the emergence of Dennis Smith Jr., a rubber-legged rookie out of NC State who has lept (quite literally) into the NBA consciousness with pre-frontal lobe-detonating dunks like this ludicrous floor-bounce alley-oop he delivered to himself mid-fastbreak on Tuesday night. Buckle up:
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Now, Smith has displayed plenty of incredible slammage this year. The dude was in the Dunk Contest, after all…
…but this has to be his best yet, stealing the ball, rounding the defender, and lobbing it to himself perfectly off the hardwood, all without breaking stride. So for all you Mavs fans hand-wringing over that top lottery pick, take heart: There is n..

It's no secret the Masters holds its fans, sorry, patrons to a strict set of rules. I once was told by security to sit up more when I had the audacity to lean back on my elbows for a minute to watch the action on the sixth hole's hill. I saw another lady snapped at for slipping her sandals off and I saw a couple guys quickly escorted off the grounds for running. But this year, it seems as if the tournament has taken its spectator guidelines to another level.
RELATED: Augusta National's unwritten rules
According to Bunkered, Augusta National security have been handed a sheet of phrases that fans are prohibited from shouting out. One notable inclusion? Bud Light's “dilly dilly” cheer that has popped up everywhere in the past year, from Super Bowl commercials to Ben Roethlisberger play calls to Vegas sportsbooks. Say what you will about the phrase, but it has proved to be a brilliant marketing tool for the beverage giant. And Bud Light's response to this supposed ..

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) The recovery from the back injury took a lot longer than he imagined, longer than the sting of having to miss the Masters.

Dustin Johnson, with a history of misfortune in the majors, has a remarkable knack of moving forward.

If only everyone would quit reminding him.

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”I get asked about it every day out here on the range or walking down the fairway,” Johnson said. ”So I’m reminded all the time.”

The back injury getting most of the attention at this year’s Masters belongs to Tiger Woods, and for good reason. It was far more severe, requiring four surgeries over four years, the last one fusion in the lumbar area. More than keeping Woods from playing Augusta National three of the last four years, he hardly played at all.

Johnson’s injury was a freak accident at the worst time.

He had won his last three tournaments against three of the strongest fields of the year, which not only elevated him to No. 1 in the world, it made him the biggest..

There is no dinner more exclusive than the Champions Dinner at Augusta National, an evening drenched in so much swagger, they should bottle it and sell it on a Golf Channel infomercial.
So esteemed is this group, it's almost a shame they let us mere mortals peek in by posting a picture on Instagram. But they do, and here it is:
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Oh to to be a fly on the wall at such a gathering. The stories! The knowledge! The awkward small talk while trying not to bring up that questionable drop from 30 years ago! What exactly did the assembled green jacket winners discuss while dining on Sergio Garcia's choice of Spanish-themed lobster rice? We can't say for sure. But we can draw some conclusions based on the photographic evidence.
Danny Willett: Obscured by history . . . and Fuzzy Zoeller's head.
FacebookPinterestTiger Woods and Mark O'Meara: BFFs again
FacebookPinterestRelated: Upgrade your game this season with Golf Digest All Access
Phil Mickelson:..

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) Rory McIlroy paused under a towering Georgia pine just off the 14th green, mimicking a swing and going over some of the finer points of Augusta National with practice partner Ian Woosnam.

Good thinking.

Woosnam, after all, has one of those coveted green jackets.

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McIlroy needs one to join a very exclusive club.

”You have to embrace and relish the opportunity that is put in front of you,” he said, ”and go out and grab it.”

Funny thing, it looked like the Masters would be the first major championship of McIlroy’s career. In 2011, riding the hype as the game’s brightest new star, he led after each of the first three rounds and was still out front making the turn Sunday.

Then, in one of the greatest collapses in major championship history, he played the final nine holes at 7 over to shoot 80 .

At the time, it felt like his world had collapsed.

Looking back, he considers it a turning point in his career.

”I feel like it made me a better..

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) The power off the tee and the sharpness with his short game made him look like the Tiger Woods of old. The smile on his face and the company he kept Tuesday at the Masters – a practice round with Phil Mickelson – suggested someone entirely different.

Woods and Mickelson had not played together at Augusta National since 2009, and even then it wasn’t by choice. They were paired in the final round, and while neither won the green jacket, Lefty shot 67 and got him by one shot.

This time they were partners, and it wasn’t a fair fight against Fred Couples and Thomas Pieters.

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Never mind that Mickelson hit his opening tee shot at No. 10 behind a magnolia tree. Unlike that failed foursomes match they played at Oakland Hills in the 2004 Ryder Cup, Mickelson had to play the next shot, too.

The two loudest roars that shattered the morning calm came from Woods making eagle on the two par 5s at No. 13 and No. 15.

”I made a few birdies in there,” Mi..

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) They’re older now, no longer the 20-somethings who together helped usher golf into a new era.

The evidence of that isn’t in their golf swings, but in their appearance. When Tiger Woods takes off his hat after a round, there’s a pronounced bald spot in the back and Phil Mickelson looks, well, like a guy should look as he approaches the half century mark in life.

In most other sports they wouldn’t contenders. In most other sports they wouldn’t even be playing.

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But here at the Masters, against a field loaded with young talent, they’re among the favorites.

Not just of the fans, who enjoyed the unlikely pairing of Mickelson and Woods in a rare practice round together on Tuesday. Oddsmakers in Vegas think both have a good shot at donning the traditional green jacket on Sunday, and if it’s Mickelson he would be the oldest Masters champion ever.

A Masters for the ages? How about one for the aged?

”We’re at the tail end of our careers, we bot..