SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) Jordan Spieth considers himself lucky.

As hard as he made it look, winning the U.S. Open three years ago felt easy. He was two months removed from his victory at Augusta National. No matter what happened at Chambers Bay, he was the Masters champion for the rest of the year, and a major champion for life.

”House money,” he described that week.

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And then he won another major with a birdie-double bogey-birdie finish, helped by Dustin Johnson three-putting from 12 feet to lose by one. Spieth was 22 when he became the first player in 74 years – Craig Wood in 1941 – to win his first major and then add a second major in his next try.

It didn’t come that quickly for Tiger Woods, even after a 12-shot victory at the 1997 Masters in his first major as a pro. Woods played 10 more majors, half of them while overhauling his swing, before he won his next one.

Winning one major is great. Winning multiple majors commands a new level of respect.

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SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) Brooks Koepka scoffs when told this week’s U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills will be a far different challenge than the tournament he won last year at Erin Hills.

Koepka, who scored his first major in Wisconsin, sees little difference in this traditional layout at Southampton and the far newer Erin Hills.

”To be honest with you, I think they’re actually kind of similar,” Koepka said Tuesday after some practice work. ”The fairways are obviously not as wide, but I think the fairways out here are pretty generous. I feel like you’ve got the second shot, a couple of runoff areas around the greens where you’ve got the option to putt it if you want or you could chip it.

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”Erin Hills, it’s a second-shot golf course. That’s how I see it. I feel like you’ve got to position your iron play, put it in the right spots, put it below the hole, things like that. And if it keeps firming up the way it has over the last two days, it could be a little links..

Jack Nicklaus joins Joe Buck to discuss the 1986 US Open at Shinnecock Hills and preview the 2018 US Open.

Jack Nicklaus joins Joe Buck to discuss the 1986 US Open at Shinnecock Hills and preview the 2018 US Open.

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) Lots of folks have become accustomed to seeing Jordan Spieth’s name atop leaderboards, particularly at golf’s majors. So has Spieth.

Yet since winning the British Open last July, Spieth barely has been a factor on the weekends. He believed third-place finishes in Houston and at the Masters had indicated a turnaround heading into this week’s U.S. Open. But since Augusta, his best showing in five tournaments is a tie for 21st at the Byron Nelson, and he twice missed cuts, including most recently at the Memorial.

Not quite the stuff that rocketed Spieth to the top of golf, with Masters and U.S. Open wins in 2015, and his third major last summer at Royal Birkdale.

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”Yeah, I think my patience has been tested, just not going into Saturday or Sunday with a legitimate chance to win but maybe once,” Spieth said Tuesday at Shinnecock Hills. ”Technically the Masters, I didn’t really have a chance. The back nine, I ended up giving myself a chan..

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — The mentor-mentee relationship between Tiger Woods and Jason Day has been well documented in recent years with the younger golfer using the 14-time major champ as a sounding board during his own rise to the top of golf's world ranking. But it turns out Tiger doesn't always respond to Day.
“I texted him the other day, I sent him a picture,” Day said ahead of the 2018 U.S. Open. “It was him at this event in 2004, and he had, looked like, MC Hammer pants on. I'm like, 'hey, man, look at these pants. They're terrible.' He had pleats on them and everything. It was like the old school stuff. And he didn't text me back.”
RELATED: 33 things you don't remember about Tiger's last major title
Ouch. . . (Note to self: If I ever acquire Tiger's cell digits, do NOT rag on his fashion. Even if it's something he wore 14 years ago.)
But things were clearly patched up between the two on Tuesday at Shinnecock Hills when Woods sta..

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. (AP) The PGA Tour has approved a name change for The Greenbrier Classic in West Virginia.

The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs says in a statement the tournament will now be known as A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier.

The eight-year-old tournament has typically been held around the Independence Day holiday. This year’s event is set for July 5-8 on the Old White TPC Course.

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West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, who owns the resort, says current and past veterans will be admitted to the tournament for free and have access to a private seating area.

Justice says ”we want the world to know that the military comes first, and our focus is on those men and women above everything else.”

Alexander Hassenstein – UEFAMaybe you don't care about the 2018 World Cup. Maybe it's because the U.S. didn't qualify or because you'd have better luck finding Santa's workshop on a map than Tunisia. Maybe you just feel the same way about soccer as you do about tea: Sure it exists, but so does coffee. But(t), we're willing to bet you're at least mildly curious about the WAGs—a glittery cavalcade of models, pop stars, and Instagram empresses, all of whom are set to descend upon Russia with their y-chromosomes in tow. So to celebrate soccer's other, better halves, we assembled a not-even-close-to-exhaustive list of the most beautiful WAGs from the 2018 World Cup. Something tells us by the time you finish “reading”, you'll be wearing cleats to bed and practicing your step overs in the park.
Georgina Rodriguez (girlfriend of Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo)
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Ruby Mae (girlfriend of England's Dele Alli)
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With the advent of more sophisticated batted ball data, such as exit velocity and launch angle, it’s easier now than ever before to dig into the validity of early season performances.

This batted ball data provides us further context when evaluating typical luck statistics for hitters, such as batting average on balls in play (BABIP) and home run to fly ball rate (HR/FB percentage). By viewing these statistics together we can draw conclusions on hot or cold hitters through the season’s first two and a half months and decide what direction we expect their production to go moving forward, which will be beneficial for season-long and daily fantasy sports players. Let’s take a look at an example on each end of the spectrum.

No hitter in MLB has had a bigger negative difference between their weighted on base average (wOBA) and their expected weighted on base average (xwOBA) than Kendrys Morales. The xwOBA stat uses exit velocity and launch angle along with strikeout and walk rates to esti..

Once happy to be just playing golf, Woods can now think about winning.