PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) About three months before Justin Thomas had his big end to a great year, he sought some advice from Rory McIlroy.

McIlroy was honest, as always, and showed just how much he pays attention.

Thomas missed the 54-hole cut at The Players Championship with a 79 in the third round, but it was his scorecard at the end of the first round and start of the second round that illustrated some of his issues.

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He had a 19-hole stretch that he played in even par – despite making only one par.

Starting on the 12th hole of the first round, he went birdie-bogey-bogey-bogey-eagle-birdie-bogey to cap off a 73. He returned the next day and started the second round on No. 10 and went bogey-bogey-bogey-par-birdie-birdie-birdie-bogey-double bogey, made the turn and started birdie-birdie-birdie. He shot 71.

McIlroy played with him the opening two rounds.

”I wasn’t playing well last year,” Thomas said. ”I texted Rory – we’ve played a decent amount o..

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) The No. 1 ranking that Dustin Johnson has held for the last 15 months has never been more in jeopardy.

Four players behind him – Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Jordan Spieth and Justin Rose – have a mathematical chance this week at The Players Championship to replace Johnson atop the world ranking.

Spieth didn’t even know it.

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”Am I one of them?” he asked Tuesday. ”Sweet.”

He didn’t know because he didn’t particularly care. He reached No. 1 for the first time with his runner-up finish in the 2015 PGA Championship, and he returned to the top on three more occasions for a total of 26 weeks.

Spieth cares more about winning The Players Championship than any ramifications.

”It was never a goal of mine to hold it a certain length of time,” Spieth said. ”It’s almost like a feat, like winning a major. But now it’s more like … if I remained No. 2 and won majors, and was No. 1 for a long time and won six, I’d take the first one.”

Spieth r..

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) Their relationship has been softened by age.

The needle is sharp as ever.

Never mind that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have only five victories between them over the last five years. It’s a big deal when the two best players of their generation are in the same group at any tournament, much less The Players Championship.

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Mickelson, of course, wanted something even better.

”I look at the cover of the newspaper and the pairing is on there and the excitement that’s been going on around here, it gets me thinking,” Mickelson said Tuesday. ”Why don’t we just bypass all the ancillary stuff of a tournament and just go head-to-head and just have kind of a high-stakes, winner-take-all match.”

Lefty was just getting warmed up.

”Now, I don’t know if he wants a piece of me,” he said, pausing for laughter, ”but I just think it would be something that would be really fun for us to do, and I think there would be a lot of interest in it i..

Ethan MillerIn a few weeks, we'll know how this all ends. We'll know who lifts Lord Stanley's giant chalice, who doesn't, and how the Cap conspired to f—k it all up this time. But until then, there's still Game 7s to savor, Milbury hot takes to suffer, and one hell of an underdog to pull for. So to celebrate, we've assembled the most comprehensive collection of NSFW NHL playoff signs the internet has to offer. Between now and early June, plenty more puck-related Picassos will grace Instagram feeds across North America, but needless to say, it's going to take something special to top these debauched, depraved (and downright hilarious) beacons of pure hockey insanity.
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Leading things off with a period joke. Just want to make sure everyone knows what they're in for here.
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Don't Google bender.
FacebookPinterestJonathan KozubSnorkle? Check. Shorts? Check. Sign? Check. This is black-belt level stuff…

Nathaniel S. ButlerThe NBA used to be the land of milk and honey for bad-ass nicknames, blessed with magical monikers like “The Iceman,” “Chocolate Thunder,” and “Dr. J” (R.I.P, ABA). Sadly, that creativity started to die when we collectively decided “First letter of first name + first syllable of last night = nickname!” was okay, and perished when Kobe Bryant nicknamed himself and no one called him out for it. (Never forget.)
But, thanks to author Nick Kapur, sweet-sounding sobriquets have been resurrected.
Kapur, a historian of Japan and East Asia, decided to educate Twitter on the NBA nicknames that exist in China, one of the more basketball-crazed countries in the world.
https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/993521866651381764
And the thread that followed was simply a delight:
https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/993522947167084544
https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/993528421341855745
https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/993528671171465221
https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status..

Welcome to another edition of The Grind, where we apologize to all the dads out there who we ever gave crap to for bailing on playing golf due to having young kids. My first round as a father was preceded by a hurried 5:30 a.m. feeding, a spit-up clean up, and a scatterbrained missed turn that literally had me racing to the first tee. Exhausted, embarrassed, but at least happy I avoided a speeding ticket, I then proceeded to shoot my worst score in years and somehow strain my forearm in the process. In other words, the USGA really should look into implementing some sort of dad handicap. So again, to all the parents I’ve played golf with, sorry. I get it. Now let's talk about some real golfers.
WE'RE BUYING
Jason Day: Clearly, the Aussie doesn't need a dad handicap. Day picked up his second PGA Tour title of 2018 at the Wells Fargo Championship and then picked up his son Dash on the 18th green. Only one of those things is getting harder to do for him, and it’s not winning..

Vaughn RidleyThere is so much to digest here we're not sure to begin. First of all, let's be easy on the people of Toronto. Their team, coming into the NBA Playoffs as the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, just got swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers and some epic performances from LeBron James. Poor Toronto. Their city's legacy for wilting in the playoffs continues to cement itself. It can't be easy to be a Raptors fan.
Probably the most famous of any Raptors fan is Drake, the rapper who made headlines last week for trying to fight the Cavaliers' Kendrick Perkins after a heartbreaking Game 1 loss in Toronto. Perhaps that was foreshadowing, as Drake again threw down with a member of the Cavs family. His latest target? A 13-year-old kid. LeBron's kid, to be exact. (Drake is 31, in case you were wondering.)
Yep, apparently Drake went back and forth with LeBron's son, LeBron James Jr., who apparently goes as Bronny (more on this later). You would think ..

John ShearerOn Monday night, a carefully curated selection of the world's most beautiful bipeds gathered on Manhattan's Upper East Side to show off how much expendable income they have to spend on cufflinks while simultaneously raising a couple of bucks for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As you've maybe already guessed, it was the 2018 Met Gala—AKA “fashion's night out”—and this morning the internet is pouring over glittery red carpet glamour shots of [insert very popular, probably terrible person here], trying to figure out who it wore it best and, more interestingly, who didn't.
Oddly enough, that brings us to Tom Brady—all-American quarterback, traveling rabbit top hat salesman, and conqueror of Brazilian bikini models—who grabbed every Instagram feed in sports by the throat last night when he showed up dressed like The Man With the Golden Gun undercover as Wayne Newton performing lounge jazz covers of Metallica's Black Album. Embracing the evening&#03..

A junior golfer's battle with depression was apparent in his relationship with golf,

Set down in the wild, rolling ranch land of eastern Oregon, there's a place called Silvies Valley Ranch. A luxury resort built on working cattle land, Silvies Valley, like Oregon itself, is a funky little paradox. There's your traditional spa, lavish “glamping” cabins, and a quartet of rustic, links-style golf courses snaking through the brushy bluffs and occasional pine stand. But dig a little deeper—or, better yet, book a tee time on the 7-hole McVeigh's Gauntlet—and you'll quickly see not everything is as ordinary as it seems.
Why? Because on McVeigh's Gauntlet, your caddie isn't some John Doe who's more interested in talking about his kids' grades than your yardage, it's a goat—a four-legged, bull-headed, actual freakin' goat.
The bi-products of Silvies Valley's American Range Goat breeding program (in case you're as confused as we are), goat caddies come with a host of goat-related complications, however, so we sat down w..