Golf's most decorated champion faces off against arguably its craftiest competitor at the Old Course.

Golf Notes: Another clutch 6-iron for McDowell, a different method of Masters preparation for Casey

We rated golf balls based on our four criteria (Performance, Innovation, Feel and Demand) and conducted player testing at the Marriott Grande Vista Resort in Orlando.

Jamie SquireThe year is 2049. Cole Sprouse is president of the United States and a mostly cybernetic Tiger Woods is still stuck on 14 majors. Across the world, the dreaded millennial has risen to the highest echelons of power, even at the Masters, where time once stood still.
With much of the old guard retired to the Great Par 5 in the sky, the new leadership has made a few tweaks to the tournament's time-honored formula, and we're here to help get you acclimated. So before you teleport down to the People's Republic of Georgia for your annual spring pilgrimage, check out the full list of changes below…and whatever you do, don't forget to pack your own pimento.
Participatory green jackets for all competitors
Optional soft-serve ice cream outing available for players who miss the cut.
Vegan pimento “cheese” sandwiches made with free-range oat milk
FacebookPinterestJamie SquireIn the future, dairy is punishable by death.
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Column: Masters awaits, and just the right time to take attention off complaints and controversies

Focus On SportOn Monday, former New York Mets pitcher and now Mets analyst Ron Darling joined the Mike Francesa show on WFAN to promote his new book “108 Stitches,” a collection of anecdotes from his 12-year career in the bigs. In a good bit of selling, Darling alluded to one of the juiciest stories in the book that involves former teammate Lenny Dykstra, and it's not exactly flattering for Dykstra.
According to Darling, the situation occurred during Game 3 of the 1986 World Series between the Mets and the Boston Red Sox. Trailing 2-0 in the series, the Mets sent out Dykstra to bat first in Game 3 against Red Sox pitcher Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd. In an excerpt from the book that was published in the New York Post over the weekend, Darling writes that Dykstra unleashed an ugly, racist tirade directed at Boyd prior to the at-bat:
“Lenny was in the on-deck circle shouting every imaginable and unimaginable insult and expletive in his direction — foul, racist, hateful, hurtful stuff. I do..

Harry How(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)Jake Owen proved in his professional golf foray last summer that he can take the occasional haymaker as well as he can dish them. A good thing, because—by the sounds of Owen's interview with Barstool Sports—the country music star received a mean uppercut at the hands of Phil Mickelson.
In a snippet released by Barstool's Fore Play podcast, Owen relayed the story of attending Jordan Spieth's wedding last fall, and the nuptials happened to come a day after the infamous Mickelon-Tiger Woods match. Owen apparently shared the sentiments of many in the golf community: that the made-for-TV spectacle was a bit of a dud. So when he saw Mickelson at the wedding, Owen—prodded by some liquid courage—decided to give the five-time major winner a piece of his mind.
Unfortunately for Owen, no one escapes a jam like Phil Mickelson. Or does so with such gusto:
https://twitter.com/RiggsBarstool/status/1112849515130880006
On the bright side, Owen no..

Nike's athletes will be playing in Masters-themed golf shoes in 2019. Here are the five shoes you'll see in play at Augusta National.

It's been a pretty good April Fools' Day in the wide world of sports. The U.S. Open announced plans to replace ball persons with ball puppies. Tom Brady faux retired. Our wildest dreams were indulged and our imaginations tempted, but at end of the day, the most elaborate ruse belonged to Tony Finau and Nike, who conspired to create the Finau1, golf's first (and probably) last fake signature shoe.
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RELATED: Sergio Garcia is fired up…about his new 'Game of Thrones' sneakers, that is
At almost three and a half minutes long—practically Return of the King by internet standards—the mini mockumentary tells the story of Nike's quest to build Finau a signature shoe that will provide his ankles with the support they need following his grisly injury while celebrating a hole-in-one at last year's Masters Par 3 Contest. After months of fictional and trial and error, the brains behind Nike golf—with a little help from Finau's own napk..

It's been a carnival fun house of a season for Sergio Garcia. Just weeks removed from a temper tantrum the likes of which professional golf has never seen, the Spaniard found himself embroiled in another controversy at the WGC-Dell Match Play this weekend when he missed a tap-in that fellow flashpoint Matt Kuchar didn't concede, leading to a heated confrontation and, reportedly, a request from Garcia that Kuchar concede a future hole to make things fair. Given Kuchar's own, uh, well-documented tendencies, that didn't happen, and Garcia was unceremoniously dumped out of the competition in the quarterfinals.
As you can probably imagine, on Sunday Garcia was pretty fired up, but thankfully this time for totally good, non-golf reasons, opening up a mystery Adidas package to find a pair of the brand's new super-duper limited-edition Game of Thrones Ultraboosts waiting for him inside:
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