CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) Rory McIlroy tried everything he could to forget about golf in the days following the Masters.

He binge-watched ”Billions.” He read a couple of books: ”The Chimp Paradox” and ”Essentialism.” And he knocked back a few bottles of wine – ”that sounds really bad; it wasn’t that bad,” McIlroy said with a sheepish grin – before his wife Erica finally had enough and dragged him out of the house.

She told him they needed to go do something – anything. All of that other stuff wasn’t working.

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McIlroy was upset after a final round 74 at Augusta National last month kept him from winning the one major that has eluded the 28-year-old during his exceptional professional career.

”The Masters has become the biggest golf tournament in the world and I’m comfortable saying that,” McIlroy said. ”I don’t care about the U.S. Open or The Open Championship. It is the biggest tournament in the world. It has the most amount of eyeballs, the most amount of hyp..

Breakthrough Golf Technology has produced a putter shaft Barney Adams calls, “a step forward in golf equipment technology.”

Summer is nearly upon us, and that means every idiotic, novelty fashion trend available to the human imagination is about to come spewing out of the proverbial woodwork and into your Twitter feed. This time last year, we were struggling to wrap our heads around the male romper (and, to a lesser extent, swimsuit overalls), and now sartorial hell is back and bolder than ever thanks Carmar Denim's new “extreme cut” “jeans”. Seriously, where's Thanos when you need him?
FacebookPinterestFacebookPinterestFeaturing no front, no back, and no crotch, “extreme cut” jeans are convenient for public restroom emergencies and, to be honest, not much else. But before you, umm, shred Carmar for this Fyre Festival-approved publicity stunt, at least consider the fact you now get to have lunch with your mom while wearing a denim g-sting on top of your regular underwear. Little wins, folks. Little wins.
FacebookPinterestBut wait, we haven't even got to the best part yet. For the right to be ..

How did we miss this? Seriously, how—in an era where TV and movie build-ups have gotten so out of hand that writers consume entire novels just to decode the meaning of a character's tattoo—did we miss this nugget? Forget misconstrued as a red herring; no one even remotely brought this up. And it was right in front of us the entire time.
“It” being this Avengers: Infinity War reveal from star Mark Ruffalo:
https://twitter.com/GMA/status/886662985166471168
Look at Don Cheadle's face! His “The f*** you doing man?” expression deserves its own three-picture MCU deal. As it should be, considering…
SPOILER ALERT
…Ruffalo gave away the film's exact ending. Of course, only a moron believes all the heroes that perished at the hands of Thanos are really gone. Not only is there another Avengers movie in the pipeline, but most of the departed stars have sequels in the works. (And “Black Panther 2: R.I.P. T'Challa” and “Spiderman: Still Dead” would be tough sells.) Still, the..

Reagan, Ventura, Schwarzenegger, Trump, Kid Rock. America's long lineage of bloated celebrity caricatures ascending to the highest echelons of our nation's Great™ leadership welcomed another new member on Tuesday night, when demonic WWE wrestler Kane—Undertaker's disturbed, pyromaniac little brother from 1997 to present—won Knox County, Tennessee's GOP mayoral primary by a narrow margin of 17 votes. He is expected to Tombstone Piledrive his democratic opposition in the general election, because Tennessee.
https://twitter.com/RobbieBarstool/status/991039216887980033
https://twitter.com/GlennJacobsTN/status/991328937241382912
https://twitter.com/GlennJacobsTN/status/991347202571296769
According to local reports, the 7-foot, 300-pound “monstrous abomination”…
FacebookPinterestextracted “directly from your childhood nightmares”…
FacebookPinterestand long “consumed by an infernal desire to set ablaze the lives of his fellow Superstars”…
FacebookPinterestran on a pl..

There's something about Quail Hollow that brings out the best in Justin Thomas. In his first appearance at the Wells Fargo Championship in 2015, he tied for seventh, then won the PGA Championship at the Charlotte, N.C. course last August, producing some memorable moments in the process. Yet somehow, his most clutch moment at Quail Hollow may have come on Wednesday during the Wells Fargo pro-am.
With the cameras rolling, it appeared like Thomas was just signing a glove and ball for a couple of fans, but then it quickly turned into a life-changing moment for this couple:
https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/991686838413754368
Who says JT doesn't love the fans? He even initiated the group hug:
https://twitter.com/RexHoggardGC/status/991689275128369152
Great stuff from Thomas, who continues to dominate life. Oh yeah, and congrats to the couple too.
RELATED: Justin Thomas is the Baddest Man on the PGA Tour, and it has very little to do with golf

Andrew RedingtonThere are countless tales involving Phil Mickelson and gambling. In fact, if one were so inclined, a collection of these stories would make for quite an entertaining book. . . Hang on, I'll be back in a few months. . . On second thought, compiling an encyclopedia on this topic would be a lot of work, so in the meantime, here's the latest anecdote involving the five-time major champ and betting. And boy, is it a humdinger of a story.
RELATED: Phil Mickelson gambled on the set of “Tin Cup”
It comes from Action Network's Jason Sobel, who shared his account of something that happened while he was covering the Wells Fargo Championship five years ago. You should read Sobel's entire story, but here's the gist:
— Mickelson invited a group of players, caddies and media to a party that Saturday night.
— Mickelson had boxing on TV and said multiple times that “wagering is encouraged.”
— Mickelson told people he would bet on “the underdog” in a particula..

OK, we need to talk about how bad the Houston Astros bullpen is. Houston might have the best group of starting pitchers in baseball. Justin Verlander struck out 14 New York Yankees batters across eight innings—the second straight game an Astros starter made Yankees hitters look silly at the plate. But for the second straight game, the Astros bullpen let the Yankees back into it. And in the case of Tuesday night's game, closer Ken Giles blew the lead for Verlander.
Giles took the loss pretty hard. Actually, really hard. Or his face did at least.
https://twitter.com/Deadspin/status/991515248946503680
That wasn't just a little slap in the face. Giles delivered quite the blow to his jaw. And then went onto self-destruct in the dugout.
Here's another angle:
https://twitter.com/KennyDucey/status/991512091742867456
If you're the Astros, and you have three of your starting pitchers—Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Charlie Morton—in the top 7 in ERA in all of baseball, all you nee..

We first connected with Ryan Whitney, former NHL defenseman, when he told the story of crossing paths at Medalist GC with a trash-talking Tiger Woods on his popular Spittin' Chiclets' podcast . But Whitney had a lot more to say about golf—and hockey— when he joined us on this week's Golf Digest Podcast. Since his retirement from the NHL in 2014, he's devolved into a self-described golf nut, working his way down to a low single digit handicap after taking up the game seriously a mere decade ago. The full interview (the Whitney portion begins at the 28:30 mark) can be heard on the podcast, but below are some excerpts from our conversation with one of hockey's most colorful characters.
How serious of a golfer have you become?
I started really playing when I was 25. I played maybe once a year growing up but didn't like it. But then a bunch of guys I was playing with were playing. That was about 10 years ago, and like any golfer knows, the bug is real. The golf..

The NBA on TNT crew is a jovial group for the most part, laughing with — and at — each other nearly as much as providing actual basketball analysis. But things got serious on Tuesday night as the Warriors-Pelicans playoff game went to halftime. As a clip of Draymond Green and Rajon Rondo jawing played, Charles Barkley, referring to Golden State’s point forward/tough guy repeatedly said “I want to punch him in the face.” That escalated quickly!
https://twitter.com/barstoolsports/status/991524153080582145
As Kenny Smith tried to pry for a motive from Barkley, Shaq jumped in with a chuckle. “Kenny, Kenny, just leave him be when he’s like this.” Barkley didn’t back down from his statement and the crew laughed it up. OK, so even when discussing a potential physical assault on a player, these guys have a good time (The night before, Shaq threw a huge fish at Barkley, almost causing him to fall over).
RELATED: That time Charles Barkley threatened Shaq. . . with a chicken wing
Draymond Green, ..