AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) It sounds like the final hole at Amen Corner is going to get a little longer.

At least one golfer says hallelujah.

Augusta National Chairman Fred Ridley hinted Wednesday that the par-5 13th, a 510-yard hole known as Azalea, could be super-sized down the road.

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”There’s a great quote from Bobby Jones dealing specifically with the 13th hole, which has been lengthened over time, and he said the decision to go for the green in two should be a momentous one,” Ridley said during his pre-Masters news conference. ”And I would have to say that our observations of these great players hitting middle, and even short irons, into that hole is not a momentous decision.”

Jordan Spieth, the 2015 Masters champion, would welcome the extra yardage.

”I would hope it would be lengthened, personally, to take away certain players being able to cut off a lot of the hole and require pretty much everyone to hit it around the same line,” he said.

Spieth added th..

The most important place in golf might be the large oak tree outside the Augusta National clubhouse. Nearby, they also play a golf tournament

Ridley suggests golf's organizations need to think beyond their own interests to solve the distance question

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) Vandini Sharma of Chandigarh, India, is the 16-year-old sister of Shubhankar Sharma, who makes his debut at the Masters this week. Her short stories have won literary awards. She has agreed to write a first-person account of her experience at the Masters for The Associated Press.

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When reporters and all the new people who’ve recently entered our world ask my brother what it felt like to make the Masters at 21, Shubhankar gently shrugged, and said it wasn’t completely unexpected. After years of hard work and the magical last four months that have flown by, the sun is beginning to dawn on our journey’s horizons.

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My first view of the Masters popped up like a jack-in the-box. I felt struck out of the blue. This was the first golf tournament I’d known as a toddler and memorized with care.

Its reputation was fortified by years of sleepless memories. My father and brother would sit rooted for hours, exhilarated and enthralled, before the bla..

Rumors about a third Bill and Ted movie have been bubbling around pretty much since the end of the second Bill and Ted movie, which you and your formerly athletic and currently drooping musculature will be stunned to realize occurred in 1991. NINETEEN NINETY-ONE, GRANDPA. That is very close to knocking on THIRTY YEARS AGO. You know what’s weird is Googling facts about a Bill and Ted movie and being reminded of your own mortality. Wasn’t expecting that.
Anyway, Bill and Ted! Buzz for a third movie is picking up again, at least according to the over-caffeinated super-tweeting members of The Internet, which makes its collective clothes damp and heavy every time two cast members from a ‘90s show converge for any activity at all. (JAMES VAN DER BEEK AND KATIE HOLMES SPOTTED IN SAME GAP FOR KIDS, DAWSON’S CREEK REUNION IS A 100% LOCK AND WE ARE CRYING)
Earlier this week, Entertainment Weekly, which is basically 80% just pictures of cast reunions and anecdotes about alternate endings at this ..

Life is good, if not super busy, for Sergio Garcia. The Spaniard returns to Augusta National this week not only as the defending champion, having won his coveted first major last year, but he's now a father—with his wife, Angela, giving birth to the couple's daughter, Azalea, less than a month ago.
With his daughter sharing the name of Augusta National's 13th hole, Azalea, Sergio even took his entire family—including the newborn, Azalea—out to the most famous par 5 in the world. Talk about an emotional moment.
Now, it appears, Sergio has another ode to his daughter in store for this week. The 38-year-old shared a photo of a new putter cover designed
https://twitter.com/TheSergioGarcia/status/981570325942099968
RELATED: Masters 2018: The New Sergio Garcia
We'll see if Baby Garcia makes her way to the Par-3 Contest that will be contested Wednesday afternoon. That might make the pre-tournament build-up perfect. And how lucky is that baby? You're less than two mont..

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) All three marveled at Tiger Woods as youngsters, then grew up and staked their own place in the game.

Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm and Jordan Spieth are stars at every tour stop, ranked Nos. 2, 3 and 4 in the world. But this week at the Masters brings an eerily familiar sight.

Though the game’s once most-dominating player sits well below the trio – at 103rd in those same rankings – they’re all looking up at Tiger Woods again.

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”I know he wants to make another run at us young guns. And some of the older guys,” Thomas said, without naming names, ”have been winning lately, so I guess we need to try to get our little streak back.

”But it’s great for golf, great for him and I’d cherish the opportunity to be potentially going down the stretch with him to win a tournament or a major, so who knows?” he added.

Much has been made of the stories passed on from their elders, how unbeatable Woods was coming down the stretch.

”Anybody that played agains..

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) A new women’s amateur tournament will be played partially at Augusta National the week before the Masters.

Masters chairman Fred Ridley announced the tournament Wednesday, calling it a move to help grow the game of golf. It will be called the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

The tournament will be played over three rounds, with the first two at the Champions Retreat outside Augusta and the final round played on the Saturday before the Masters at the famed Augusta National course.

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Ridley said Masters officials believe it will be the most widely attended amateur tournament in the world, and by a large margin. The field will consist of 72 women invited by the Masters.

The Masters also hosts a youth putt, chip and drive contest on the Sunday before the Masters.

James Harden is the NBA's likely MVP and a member of the league's best team right now (emphasis on right now while the Warriors play possum). But when it comes to showing off his dance moves, he gets shy like the rest of us.
Ahead of Tuesday night's game, Harden broke out a few of his best moves (most involved pump fakes so he was basically practicing) while sitting on the Rockets' bench. But the Toyota Center's cameras caught him in action and showed him on the arena's jumbotron. The results — both Harden's dancing and him realizing his spot had been blown up — were hilarious. Check it out:
https://twitter.com/HoustonRockets/status/981321054500065280
Betrayed in his own arena. That's pretty cold. But Houston stayed hot, drubbing the Wizards, 120-104, behind Harden's 38 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists. Don't worry, James. When you put up numbers like that, you can dance any way you want.
RELATED: Watch James Harden make the most ..

The Dallas Mavericks have had a crap season. On the floor, they've been a bonafide lottery contender and off it, a PR disaster, with reports of sexual harassment, racism, and other assorted ugliness ripping through their front office like a bandsaw. There has been one glimmer of light for Mavs fans, however, and that's the emergence of Dennis Smith Jr., a rubber-legged rookie out of NC State who has lept (quite literally) into the NBA consciousness with pre-frontal lobe-detonating dunks like this ludicrous floor-bounce alley-oop he delivered to himself mid-fastbreak on Tuesday night. Buckle up:
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Now, Smith has displayed plenty of incredible slammage this year. The dude was in the Dunk Contest, after all…
…but this has to be his best yet, stealing the ball, rounding the defender, and lobbing it to himself perfectly off the hardwood, all without breaking stride. So for all you Mavs fans hand-wringing over that top lottery pick, take heart: There is n..