RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. (AP) Lexi Thompson is smiling and having fun again at the ANA Inspiration.

A year after a rules violation cost her four strokes in regulation in an eventual playoff loss, Thompson shot a 4-under 68 on Thursday to finish three strokes behind leader Pernilla Lindberg.

”I don’t know if I would say it’s a relief,” Thompson said. ”I was just really looking forward to just playing this week. I love coming here.”

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Thompson also again overpowered Michelle Wie on a hot afternoon at Mission Hills, four years after routing her in a final-round showdown for her first major title.

Wie fought dizzy spells on the front nine in a 75 that left her in danger of missing the cut.

”I had the mad spins,” Wie said. ”I just got really dizzy. I don’t know why or how. I don’t know.”

Wearing a black dress in the mid-90s heat, she birdied the second hole, then dropped five strokes in four holes with two double bogeys and a bogey.

”I fouled five balls out th..

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. (AP) Ayako Uehara birdied her final two holes for a 6-under 66 and a one-stroke lead halfway through the first round of the ANA Inspiration.

The Japanese player was 6 under on her final 10 holes Thursday at Mission Hills, finishing with birdies on the par-3 eighth and par-5 ninth. Stanford sophomore Albane Valenzuela, Jessica Korda and Ha Na Jang were tied for second.

Lexi Thompson and Michelle Wie were on the course in the featured afternoon pairing in the first major championship of the season. Last year, Thompson was penalized four shots with six holes to play in regulation because of a rules violation the day before, wiping out a three-stroke lead. She rallied to force a playoff that So Yeon Ryu won on the first hole.

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Jennifer StewartIchiro’s hair is graying. He doesn’t run as fast as he used to. He doesn’t hit as well as he did, either—after batting .300 his first 10 seasons in our majors, he hasn’t reached that mark the past seven seasons. After re-signing with the Mariners this spring, he strained his right calf muscle and was hit in the head with a pitch.
He also is 44 years old, baseball’s oldest position player.
Yet Ichiro is not ready to retire. He not only will play this season, he wants to play until he is 50. At least that old, he says.
Well, why not keep going? There are athletes who kept going—and some succeeding—in their late 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and decades beyond that!
FacebookPinterestRick StewartIn their 40s: George Foreman won the heavyweight boxing title in 1994 at age 45. That’s not quite as old as Rocky Balboa was in “Rocky VI’’ but it’s damn impressive. Jack Nicklaus won the Masters at age 46 in 1986, the tournament’s oldest winner ever. Heck, Ichiro’s former Mariners teammate, J..

This Masters is as much about a red shirt as a green jacket.

Tiger Woods is back for only the second time in the last five years, and what makes the sight of him at Augusta National even more tantalizing is that Woods is starting to look like the player who dominated golf for nearly 15 years.

He has power. His short game is sharp. He makes putts.

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Never mind that Woods is not ranked among the top 100 players. Or that it has been 13 years since he last won the Masters in that Sunday red shirt, and four years and eight months since he last won any tournament.

The buzz following Woods since his return from a fourth back surgery has been bigger and louder than when he was No. 1 in the world, piling up 79 victories on the PGA Tour and 14 majors. The longer he was away from the game, the more his feats looked even more legendary. And the longer he was gone, the more plausible it was that Woods might never return, at least not at a competitive level.

In his la..

The Catholic Church isn't exactly big on change, but this morning Pope Francis announced a huge one: Hell—you know, the firey despair pit where thieves, cheaters, Patriots fans, and murderers are consigned to an eternity of only Trump's Twitter feed—is going the way of Toys R' Us. In its place (you didn't think they were getting rid of the stick entirely, did you?), the souls of unrepentant sinners will simply, umm, disappear. Here's what the Pope had to say of the re-brand:
Hell doesn’t exist, the disappearance of the souls of sinners exists.
So yeah, OK, not the church's most creative work. Built on a celebrated platform of infanticide, patricide, siblicide, and one [probably] allegorical man-eating whale, the acclaimed Catholic Ideation Team clearly phoned in it here, leaving their global legion of masochists wondering where to turn for a daily dose of crippling existential terror.
Thankfully, despite all this soft-atheism mumbo-jumbo, there remains amp..

In terms of starting an entire league's season with a bang, it's going to be hard to top what Chicago Cubs second basemen Ian Happ did in Miami on Thursday.
Batting in the leadoff spot, the 22-year-old got a first-pitch fastball from Marlins pitcher Jose Urena and took it to the moon, immediately adding some more fuel to the “juiced ball” theory's fire. Check out the big blast that this color announcer pretty much called:
https://twitter.com/FOXSports/status/979401001558982656
Hot start for the Marlins, who had an interesting off-season under new CEO and part-owner Derek Jeter. They say every team has hope on Opening Day, but if Happ's homer is any indication, all hope for 2018 just instantly vanished in South Beach.
Happ, who hit 24 homers in 115 games of his rookie season, is already well on pace to eclipse that number, and likely will hit over 100. Just a couple Opening day stats for ya.
RELATED: These MLB stadiums are the best spots to see dingers in 2018

Alex TrautwigAs the old saying goes, “chicks dig the long ball”, but since that's likely to be deemed offensive in 2018, let's just say we all dig the long ball. Which is true, and you can look no further than the 2017 postseason, one that featured an all-time record of 104 total home runs, 22 of them coming in the epic World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, another all-time record. It all added up to the most-watched postseason since 2011, and much of that could be fairly attributed to the deluge of dingers.
Of course, this new style of play is not without its detractors, specifically pitchers who believe there was a change to the ball at some point in the last few years. That may be true, but it's also possible that hitters are as good as ever at launching the ball out of the ballpark. Whatever you believe, the point remains: fans want to see home runs.
As we embark on the 2018 season, it feels like another record-setting home run season is im..

This article's headline is misleading, for I didn't take a second review of “Field of Dreams.” In truth, I've watched the film close to 40 times in my life. It was one of my favorite movies as a child, and when I covered Major League Baseball for six seasons, I made a viewing a rite of winter before Spring Training commenced. That tradition fell to the wayside a few years back, yet was rekindled when I recently came across this tale of America's Pastime on Netflix in the late hours of the night. I grabbed a couple of beers and dug into the couch, ready for the film to wash over me like old times.
Unfortunately, I needed a cold shower when it was done. Because I had been missing an incontrovertible truth all these years: “Field of Dreams” is a shitty movie.
Before you begin pontificating on the film's significance to fathers and sons or regurgitate James Earl Jones, “People will come Ray” speech, “Field of Dreams” certainly has heart and soul (albeit a mawkish o..

Golf fans often wonder what it would be like to make the drive down Magnolia Lane. But what’s it like for a legend like Jack Nicklaus? Well, not as different as you’d think.
Check out this cool video of Nicklaus arriving at Augusta National in 2016—and getting stopped by security. Multiple times. Yep, even a man with 18 majors is subject to the rigorous rules at the Masters.
“May I see your badge, sir?” Imagine if Jack replied: How about I show you one of my SIX green jackets instead?
Of course, once the security guards realized who it was, they became more lenient, even agreeing to let Nicklaus' son in a car behind him with no badge to come in as well. Side note: How does Jack Nicklaus’ son not have his own Masters credential?!
Jack also doesn't seem as jazzed up about the drive as you might expect. Then again, when you've been making this drive for nearly six decades — and getting stopped along the way — it makes more sense.
RELATED: 9 things Augusta National doesn&#..

Christopher Morris – CorbisNo sport boasts a more famous group of outcasts and also-rans than baseball. Partly it's because you can look like the guy from down the street who hasn't washed his car in five years and still play it, but there's also another (far more romantic) factor to consider: If you grew up after World War II and before the ruthless Canadian slaughter of America's Pastime in the early '90s, your hierarchy of childhood dream jobs was 1. Astronaut, 2. Ballplayer, and 3. Movie star.
So to celebrate baseball's mythological lineage of Famous Dudes Who Say They Can Hack it, as well as National Man Flu Awareness Day Opening Day, we decided to piece together the most star-studded semi-pro lineup that history has to offer. So without further ado, we present the Wanna-Be Baseball All-Stars, destined to lose 161 games and somehow still beat the Mets.
FacebookPinterestC – Miles Teller
Day Job: Actor with super punchable face (Whiplash, Bleed For This..