ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) Amy Olson crossed paths with her coach, Ron Stockton, on her walk to the 18th tee at the Volvik Championship.

”Make it another even $20,” Stockton said.

The coach was already prepared to give his client $35 for making seven birdies – $5 each – and wanted to take her mind off the bogey she just had at 17.

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Olson closed the first round with a 6-under 66, putting her into the lead she ended up sharing later Thursday with Moriya Jutanugarn , Caroline Masson and Danielle Kang.

Do small, cash incentives really help a professional golfer?

”Absolutely,” said Olson, who graduated from North Dakota State with an accounting degree. ”He’ll tell you I’m a little bit of a hustler there.”

Olson will have to keep making birdies – and petty cash – to hold her position at Travis Pointe Country Club.

Jessica Korda, Minjee Lee, Nasa Hataoka, Lindy Duncan, Morgan Pressel, Megan Khang and Jodi Ewart Shadoff were a stroke back at 67 and six others were..

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) Kevin Na stood over his ball after taking a drop in the rough beside the ninth green following two wayward shots, on his final hole of the day and with a share of the lead in the Fort Worth Invitational at Colonial.

As Na looked toward the hole more than 90 feet away, he saw the huge ridge going through the middle of the green. He then noticed the caddie of one of his playing partners move a bag from behind the green.

”Because I can chip it over the right down the other side,” Na said.

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Instead, Na chipped in for an incredible birdie to wrap up an 8-under 62. That gave him a one-stroke lead over Charley Hoffman, who also had a bogey-free round Thursday. Jhonattan Vegas, Emiliano Grillo, Andrew Putnam and Beau Hossler all shot 64.

Na’s tee shot at the 399-yard ninth hole went into the rough to the right, then his approach flew over the green and settled against a temporary grandstand. His relief was a drop into more rough, but after..

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. (AP) Nevada club professional Stuart Smith admitted sleeping on the lead of the biggest tournament available to him might be a problem.

”I can’t say, `Oh, it won’t bother me.’ But to me, it’s fun,” Smith said after shooting a 5-under 66 on Thursday for a share of the first-round lead in the Senior PGA Championship.

Smith closed his morning round with a double bogey on the par-4 18th, and Scott McCarron, Tim Petrovic, Wes Short Jr., Barry Lane and Peter Lonard matched the 66 in the afternoon.

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One of 41 club pros in the field at Harbor Shores for the senior major, Smith is the director of golf at Somersett Country Club in Reno.

”To see my name on the board out there, it’s not like I’m blind to the leaderboard, that was cool,” said Smith, who is playing in his fourth Senior PGA and third at Harbor Shores – where he has made the 36-hole cut the previous two times.

”All my members are taking pictures and I know at home my members are pu..

You might remember Ronaldinho. He's the guy who did stuff like this…
and this…
while looking like this…
FacebookPinterestBuda MendesWell now, less than a month away from the 2018 World Cup, the former Brazil midfielder is stealing headlines once again for a completely different reason: He plans to marry two women…at the same time.
According to Rio De Janeiro newspaper O Dia, Ronaldinho will wed both Priscilla Coehlo and Beatriz Souza at a small ceremony in August, despite the protests of some family members, including his sister, who will not attend.
FacebookPinterestWhile polygamy is not strictly legal in Brazil, polyamorous civil unions have been recognized, and given the immense joy Ronaldinho's feet have brought his country, we'd be surprised if they didn't just let this one slide. On a personal level, Ronaldinho and his pair of brides are said to be co-habitating “harmoniously” in Ronaldinho's nearly $7 million dollar Rio mansion, with Ronaldinho a..

It wasn't quite on par with Bill Buckner, but this inexplicable error from Ole Miss pitcher Parker Caracci in an SEC Championship elimination game may haunt him for a long time.
Caracci, a redshirt sophomore, was called upon in the top of the seventh inning with two outs and Ole Miss leading Georgia 3-1. After striking out the first batter he faced to end the inning, Caracci returned in the top of the eighth and gave up two hits before striking out two more Georgia batters. With runners on second and third and two outs, Caracci got Bulldogs third baseman Aaron Schunk to hit a ground ball right back at him. Inning over, right? WRONG!! With an easy force at first available, Caracci inexplicably threw home, which would have been fine had he not gone full Jon Lester and sailed it over his catcher's head:
https://twitter.com/SECNetwork/status/999724930949439488
Caracci's blooper led to an absolutely stunning turn of events as Georgia tied the game at 3. He was able to get out..

Mike EhrmannIf Steph Curry and Tony Romo getting a crack in a professional golf event rubbed you the wrong way, well, you're really not going to like this one.
RELATED: Watch John Daly's and Jake Owen's epic duet of “Knockin' on Heaven's Door”
This past November, country music star Jake Owen became the latest celebrity golfer to be granted a sponsor's exemption for the Web.com Tour's Nashville Golf Open Benefitting the Snedeker Foundation, which began on Thursday at Nashville Golf & Athletic Club. Owen, a one handicap who has played alongside Jordan Spieth at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for the last four years, teed off Thursday morning with Steve Wheatcroft and Dawson Armstrong. Let's just say it's not gone well for the singer, and while it hasn't garnered the attention of a Curry or Romo round, the Web.com Tour is still providing plenty of coverage of it:
https://twitter.com/WebDotComTour/status/999650359294550016
https://twitter.com..

Summer is here and with it the urge to be literally anywhere other than where you currently are (chained to a desk deep within the bowels of some office dungeon, if we had to guess). Thus arrives the siren song of the theme park, an American vacation staple that, like most other inherently American things—hot dogs, baseball, the 2nd amendment—is always a little better on paper than in practice.
But long lines, lobster boil temps, and feral packs of leashed children be damned, sometimes you just have to scratch that coaster itch and get a picture with Minnie Mouse, come hell, high water, or United Airlines. In these most desperate and dire of times, The Loop are here to help, ranking the finest, funnest, freakiest theme parks in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. From Coney Island to California, something tells us we have just the cotton candy binge you're looking for.
10.) Luna Park
FacebookPinterestLocation: Coney Island, NY
Best Ride: The Coney Island Cyclone
Where ..

VIRGINIA WATER, England (AP) Rory McIlroy walked off the 18th green in disgruntled fashion, shaking his head and looking down at the ground.

Shooting a 5-under 67 at Wentworth can rarely have felt so unsatisfactory.

The four-time major winner pushed his approach shot from the middle of the fairway into the overhanging trees at the par-5 last, saw his chip clip the flag pole, then missed a 3-foot putt for birdie for a disappointing end to his first round at the BMW PGA Championship on Thursday.

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McIlroy also missed out on a birdie on the par-5 17th, too. Hence his unhappiness immediately after his round, although he was only two shots off the lead held by Lucas Bjerregaard (65).

”Walking off the 16th green and going to No. 17 at 5 over par, it was good after being 1 over after three (holes),” McIlroy said, before diverting away from revisiting the end of his round.

”I played really well, gave myself plenty of chances, drove it well, for the most part hit..

Adding match play to decide the team winner has turned college golf's biggest tournament into the rare great event that is made even greater by history

Even after a poor game by his standards (Imagine 26 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 6 turnovers on 50 percent shooting being a poor game?), LeBron James wowed anyone who watched his press conference by showing off his freakish photographic memory again. LeBron last showed off his neat parlor trick when perfectly recalling a sequence of events on Boston's parquet floor in Game 1. But an answer he gave following a Game 5 loss was even more impressive.
When the man who has almost single-handedly carried a Knicks-esque roster to the NBA Finals was asked to assess his six turnovers (Oh, the horror!), LeBron decided to go through each one. Have a look and listen:
To recap, LeBron, more than an hour after the game ended, perfectly recounted six plays that happened all throughout the game. Amazing. CBS Boston transcribed James' detailed response:
“I had two turnovers where I felt like they were just really bad,” James said, before getting into detail. “My first turnover, I tried t..