PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) Webb Simpson credited everyone around him for winning The Players Championship, his fifth career victory and in some respects his most important. And he didn’t stop with those he considers to be part of his team.

Thank-you notes also are in order for the USGA and the R&A.

Golf’s governing bodies outlawed the anchored stroke that Simpson had used with his belly putter since he was a teenager. Simpson won the 2012 U.S. Open at Olympic Club, one of three major champions in an 11-month span to use a belly putter.

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Simpson struggled mightily when forced to learn an entirely different way to putt.

That’s no longer the case.

He led the field in putting during his four-shot victory at The Players Championship, and that wasn’t just one great week. Simpson was 10th on the PGA Tour going into the TPC Sawgrass. Now he is at No. 5 in the key putting statistic.

”It’s funny how those things happen,” Simpson said. ”This is probably the fir..

Feel like you’re getting called by an unusual number of obnoxious robots lately? You are!
The good news: So is everyone else. Garbage calls are way, way up in 2018. They’re fueled partly by how we live in a world where the very expectation of privacy is a pathetic lie (and as always hello to the Uzbekistan teenagers monitoring my blood type, shopping habits and grocery preferences). But they’re also fueled by the ancient and cold rule which fuels all commerce: They’re stupidly cheap, work enough to warrant continued use and aren’t policed in any meaningful fashion.
Here are some terrible numbers: The New York Times reports that 3.4 billion robocalls were initiated in April, an increase of 900 million a month over a year ago. Surprisingly, this shocking increase has gone noticed! In a stunning display of showing up to work, both the House and Senate passed or introduced bills designed to minimize abuses in recent years. They’re not working, but, y’know, points for effort. But HEY HERE’S..

P3ProSwing's affordable indoor simulator is the latest piece of technology geared at the everyday golfer

kali9Turns out Tiger—as in Eldrick Tont Woods—wasn't the only big cat stalking densely populated Florida social gatherings this weekend. On Friday night, Christopher Columbus High School hosted a “Welcome to the Jungle”-themed prom in a hotel just outside Miami International Airport. Everything was proceeding by the standard prom playbook…until the school rolled out a massive, live tiger (because tigers live in the jungle, obviously). Needless to say, when the accompanying jugglers' torch flames finally extinguished, local parents were not exactly thrilled:
In short, there's a lot of reasons why this was actually a bad idea. First of all there's the whole safety thing, and last time we checked an apex predator in a room full of twitchy high schoolers is not exactly safe. Then there's the well-being of the animal to worry about, and it's locked in a cage being bombarded by screaming kids and the same Rihanna song on loop. My cat's world ends every ti..

As two bruising power forwards playing in the NBA during the rough-and-tumble 80s-90s era (GRRR DEFENSE), it makes sense that Charles Oakley and Charles Barkley would have their share of brushes with each other. What makes less sense is that in the nearly two decades since either has suited up for a game, their hatred hasn't dissipated.
On Monday morning, Oakley kept the beef going by burning Barkley in part with a photo of him eating beef.
https://twitter.com/CharlesOakley34/status/996000579020353536
It's really funny (Full disclosure: I grew up watching the 90s Knicks, so I'm Team OAK all the way here), but it's also pretty random. And it's got a slightly different tone from Oak's previous tweet:
https://twitter.com/CharlesOakley34/status/995662000293376000
Anyway, it reminds us of the fantastic video SB Nation recently did that documents their long rivalry that included a brawl in a pre-season game!
Not that either has trouble finding controversy with o..

Through two rounds of the NBA Playoffs, LeBron James has showcased an array of on-court talents that have reignited GOAT debates across the land. But at a press conference on Sunday, even after a rare off game, the King flashed perhaps his most impressive skill yet: A photographic memory.
When asked a lazy “what happened?” question by a reporter about a 7-0 Celtics run to begin the fourth quarter that put away Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, LeBron gave anything but a lazy answer. Channeling his inner Rain Man, James explained exactly what happened. In painstaking detail. Check it out:
https://twitter.com/espn/status/995842499217412096
Yes, his true feelings about teammate Jordan Clarkson, who he calls “Jordan Crawford” at first, may have slipped out, but that's pretty damn impressive. I don't think I would have dominated my fellow kindergartners in the card game “Concentration” if James had been in my class.
The Cavs are down 1-0 in the series, but they have a day o..

Icon Sports WireJordan Spieth has won 11 PGA Tour events and three major championships in his short but stellar professional career, which makes it hard sometimes to remember the days when the 24-year-old was just an aspiring golfer. Even though those days weren’t that long ago.
In 2010, a then 16-year-old Spieth had begun making a name for himself at the junior golf level, having won the U.S. Junior Amateur title the previous summer (one of two he would win) and being named the AJGA Rolex Player of the Year. In the midst of building an impressive resume, Spieth decided it was worth reaching out to the tournament officials at the HP Bryon Nelson Championship to inquire about something that at the time seemed a little audacious: Getting a spot in the field at a PGA Tour event.
No amateur had received an exemption into the tournament since Trip Kuehne in 1995, and Justin Leonard and Tiger Woods before that in 1993. But Spieth, a Dallas native, wrote tournament director George Conant to m..

Jim McIsaacThis past week, my renewed baseball addiction hit a fever pitch with the intense, nerve-shattering three-game series between the Yankees and Red Sox. I am a Yankees fan, but I will be the first to admit that I'm a bad one. The peak of my fandom came in the World Series year of 2009, when I lived in Brooklyn, attended about 20 games, and watched almost all the rest on TV. After that, my commitment dwindled with the team's fortunes, and by the time we hit the 2012-2106 rebuilding stretch, with exactly one playoff appearance (that lasted exactly one game), I was out.
Now, though? I'm back, baby! The Yankees are young and awesome, the Red Sox are evil, there's bad blood everywhere, and I've jumped back on the bandwagon whether they want me or not. Pinstripes for life! Or at least until the next sign of trouble!
But there's something wicked brewing on the baseball horizon in 2018, and I'm already mad. It just so happens that the Yankees and Red ..

Players Championship 2018: How much money every golfer earned while playing in this week's 2018 Players Championship

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) Paul Tesori detached the yellow flag at the 18th hole and carried it with him as he walked off the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.

For Tesori, this was more than just a championship souvenir.

It was part his childhood and could be his most treasured piece of golf memorabilia.

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Tesori, the caddie for The Players Championship winner Webb Simpson, grew up down the road from Sawgrass and has played the course more times than anyone in the field. When Simpson won by four strokes Sunday, Tesori got the first and maybe the longest embrace.

”This means about as much as anything could,” Tesori said later.

Tesori picked up golf at a young age thanks to the influence of his grandfather, who was a starter at the nearby Ponte Vedra Inn & Club for 30 years. His first golf tournament as a fan was The Players in 1977, when the event was still played across the street at Sawgrass Country Club.

He figures he’s played the Stadium Course more ..