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Better Than Caffeine

 

Adriana _Monsalve600full -adriana -monsalve


Adriana Monsalve. 32-24-36. Popular Latino sports reporter. 

Originally from Caracas, Venezuela, this lovely first gained fame as a singer in the girl band “Chikas” as well as Venezuelan pop band “Tartara” and “Latin Fiesta” (is there any other kind of “fiesta”?) in London. Today, she’s the sports anchor for ESPN Desportes, which airs in the US and Central and South America.

Enjoy the weekend.

Keegan Bradley First To Shoot 60 And Do This...

 

Keegan Bradley


2011 HP Byron Nelson Champion Keegan Bradley had suffered two-straight missed cuts before turning it around for quite a 1st 18 holes yesterday at the TPC Four Seasons course. 

He had one eagle, 10 birdies and...2 bogeys. The PGA Tour's Mike McAllister tweeted that its the first time since 1983 (21 rounds) that a PGA Tour round of 60 included two bogeys. 

Of course, the toughest thing is to replicate (or even get close) to a great score. But what the hell, enjoy it while ya can...

Note: First-round leaders have not fared well over the previous 59 playings of this tournament. Only seven players (eight times) have carried the opening-day lead on to victory, including Jason Day (2010), Scott Simpson (1993), Tom Watson (1979-80), Mark Hayes (1976), Chi Chi Rodriguez (1972), Earl Stewart (1961) and Don January (1956). 

Only two players have won the tournament in wire-to-wire fashion Mark Hayes in 1976 and Tom Watson in 1980. 

Defending champion Jason Dufner opened with an even-par 70 in his bid to become the first repeat winner of the HP Byron Nelson Championship since Tom Watson won three in a row from 1978-80.

Meanwhile, the youngsters were hanging in there. 

14-year-old Guan Tianlang shot even par

19-year-old Jordan Spieth opened with -1

21-year-old Ryo Ishikawa was +1

Tomorrow On The Teebox

 

Craigandrick

New Teebox glamour shot. Take it all in ladies...


Tomorrow on a special Nelson Teebox extravaganza we go three hours till 11am.

  • Of course lots of juicy nuggets only we can dig up at the tournament.
  • Why you really need to see the pros hit on the range
  • How a Vijay vs PGA Tour lawsuit could blow up in everyone's face.
  • Dealing with the chaos of graduation/prom stuff
  • And Craig laments about the worst thing he's ever received in the mail

All that on an expanded Teebox from Park Place Motorcars in Fort Worth this Saturday morning from 8-11.

Oh, and we'll have some Colonial tickets to give away. So don't be shy...

 

Better Than Caffeine

 

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Megan Fox
is all of 27 today. 34-23-34. Delicious mixture of Irish, French and Cherokee actress/model. 

Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Jennifer's Body, This Is 40. 

Began career at age 13. Married to 90210 alum Brian Austin Green. Was ranked #5 on Maxim magazine's Hot 100 of 2010 list. Has a fear of the dark and flying.

Wonder Woman is lame. She flies around in an invisible jet, but she's not invisible. I don't get it.

Singh Vs. PGA Tour Could Be Most Significantly Damaging Case Ever

 

Vijay Singh


SI writes about the scary possibilities of players reputations uncovered if the Singh Vs. PGA Tour actually goes to trial. 

Doug Barron (who was suspended for using steroids--albeit with a doctor's prescription) is now fully retired from golf and writing a "faith based" book that might reveal more about his case and settlement over a positive drug test. Barron was also instrumental in hooking Singh up with the attorney who thinks the PGA Championship is a PGA Tour run event.

Earlier this year, Horne offered an interesting insight into Barron's case. Horne said the Tour and Barron settled because, during the suit's discovery phrase, Barron was asking for every failed drug test the Tour had ever received, and the Tour "really didn't want to give that up."

Of course, there may or may not be failed tests. The lawyer representing the Tour in the Singh case, Rich Young of Colorado Springs, did not respond to an e-mail or a phone message. Young represented the Tour in Barron's suit as well.

Singh said in his suit he has been "humiliated, ashamed, ridiculed, scorned and [rendered] emotionally distraught" by the Tour. How he can be made whole by way of a lawsuit is not easy to imagine. It would seem unlikely that payment is his goal here.

If Singh's true goal is to force the Tour to release embarrassing information (that it may or may not even have), then the era of lawyers showing up on Golf Channel is only just beginning.

Boy, this could get really get mighty juicy. What'll be interesting is if the case throws Singh's fellow players under the bus. The Tour is a very closed shop and I'm not so sure Singh wants to play Benedict Arnold the rest of his career...

Tiger Drops To 5th Of Top Paid Athletes

 

Tiger


Sports Illustrated came out with their "Fortunate 50" list of the top-paid athletes. Tiger Woods fell to 5th this year due to several lost endorsements--despite playing better. He had been #1 on the $$$ totem poll since 2004 before losing the spot to boxer Floyd Mayweather

Its estimated he took a $20,000,000 haircut last year. Woods, Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy were the only pro golfers to make the list.

No. 5: Tiger Woods

Salary/Winnings: $7,839,027

Endorsements: $33,000,000

Total: $40,839,027

Tiger is back -- he earned more than anyone on Tour over the past 12 months -- but sponsors have been slower to return. Woods’s current deals are with Nike, EA, Rolex, Kowa (a heat rub), Fuse Science, Upper Deck and NetJets. In the past two years various lists have put Tiger’s portfolio in the $50 million range; don’t believe them. Marketing experts say that even $33 million is generous, but no one really knows how much his deal with Nike is worth. (The best estimates put it at $20 million per year.) And now that Nike is using him in TV ads again (with the ascendant Rory McIlroy), you can bet the Swoosh sees fresh value in its biggest golf star. Phil Mickelson makes more in endorsements, but the 37-year-old Woods made double on the links.


No. 6: Phil Mickelson

Salary/Winnings: $3,528,000

Endorsements: $36,000,000

Total: $39,528,000

In golf (and tennis), more than in other sports, endorsement contracts are heavily rankings-based and full of performance bonuses. At 42, Mickelson isn’t winning as much, but he’s still a sponsor’s dream because of his likability. In an ad for arthritis medicine Enbrel (for which he likely earns $7 million a year), he’s decked out in sponsorships: KPMG on his visor, Barclays on the chest of his polo, Callaway on the sleeve.

  

No. 7: Rory McIlroy

Total: $33,336,796

The widely reported Nike deal is bringing McIlroy at least $20 million a year, but it’s also likely a rankings-based contract, full of many bonuses that Rory hasn’t earned so far. Nike took a huge, long-term gamble on him that doesn’t yet look so wise, but he’s got quite a while to prove himself worthy. And to be third in the world among active golfers for endorsement earnings, at age 23, that’s pretty impressive. Other brands that all came calling in the very recent months include Bose and Omega watches.

McIlroy, the third pillar of golf’s latest Big Three, was listed in the International 20, not the Fortunate 50, but his earnings would have easily placed him in the top 10.

 

Jordan Spieth On Earning His Tour Card

 

Jordan


19-year-old Jordan Spieth is one of the headline names playing this week at the HP Byron Nelson Championship (he's teeing off at 1p today and 8a tomorrow). 

USA Today caught up with him yesterday on his whirlwind success having earned his card via sponsor exemptions and top-10 finishes. 

"Having played a really full schedule in the last three months, now I have a specific game plan," Spieth said. "Each day I know what I'm going to do, what times I'm going to do it, vs. when it's one single pro event or two a year where you're caught up in everything and trying to play the course as many times as you can before the tournament.

" … It's nice to have a specific game plan week-to-week. … Now I'm just relaxed and trying to figure out a way to win. That's the next goal."

"This is the only tournament I'll have played three times now. That's pretty special, and I think it's going to have its advantages."

"I'm asking questions and trying to learn from (veterans)," he said. "Especially the guys that are consistently on the Tour for 10 to 30 years, those guys know how to work the system so I'm trying to dip my feet in and learn from them."

And Spieth's excitement level is high for another reason. Three years ago he joked that he was just "trying to make contact" in his first Nelson. Now he's in position to cash for the first time in the tournament. He looked in the paper the next day to see what the other players made – and did so as well the following year.

"And it shows a big fat zero next to your name," Spieth said. "So it's nice to be able to, you know, get money for playing golf."

 

Better Than Caffeine

 

Elizabeth MontgomeryLiz


Elizabeth Montgomery
would've been 80 today. 36-25-36. Actress. Bewitched, Legend of Lizzy Borden. One of the hottest sitcom moms ever. Bewitched was one of the highest rated TV series from 1964-72. Dad was legendary movie actor Robert Montgomery. She was married four times. A 9 foot bronze statue of her character Samantha Stephens riding sidesaddle on her broomstick now resides in a downtown park in Salem, Massachusetts, home to the infamous witch trials of the 17th century. Was a natural brunette. 

The Byron Nelson Championship Move Is Official--We Think

 

Trinity Forest Project


It was finally "officially" announced yesterday that the HP (soon to be AT&T) Byron Nelson Championship will move to South Dallas at the new Trinity Forest Golf Course in 2019. Representatives of the Nelson, the PGA Tour and the Trinity Forest complex signed a 10-year contract, Charley Spradley, president of the Salesmanship Club of Dallas, said Tuesday. 

The current agreement with the Four Seasons Resort and Club expires in 2018. 

Dallas Morning News Bill Nichols (behind paywall) reports Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne said in a statement that the tournament “is and always has been a regional event. The tournament is bigger than any one city and benefits every community in North Texas.”

Her smokescreen spin rings sadly hollow, given that she was at the helm when the Cowboys also left Irving for Arlington. The Nelson injects tens of millions of dollars in economic impact each year for the city. 

City Hall has been eager to get the deal done, but it might not be signed until August because the nonprofit course operator is still finalizing details of its agreement with SMU. The course is intended to become the base for SMU’s golf teams.

The agreement accelerates the schedule for the Company of Trinity Forest Golfers to show it has in hand the $20 million investment the city is requiring in the golf course. Proof of that money needs to be shown by Aug. 31 under terms of the new lease.

The city’s contribution to the project is capped at $12 million. That money will go toward remediation of the landfill, grading and other plans. The council is scheduled to vote May 15 on whether to approve the lease terms.

Tiger And Sergio Feud Defines "Wussification" of Sports

 

Tiger -woods -sergio -garcia -gi


Jason Whitlock of foxsports.com believes last weekend's Tiger vs. Sergio war of words defines the epitome of today's wussification of sports

My point is a wimpy, underachieving golfer displaying petty envy, whining about crowd noise and bitching that he doesn’t like the most popular golfer in the world isn’t much of a feud. It’s an episode of Glee.

Ali vs. Frazier, now that was a feud. Ali repaid the kindness and compassion Frazier displayed during Ali’s boxing banishment by labeling Frazier an Uncle Tom and a gorilla.

Isiah’s Pistons vs. Bird’s Celtics — now that was a feud. Dennis Rodman (wrongly) claimed Bird was an overhyped Great White Hope.

John Chaney threatening to kill John Calipari — now that was a feud. Tonya Harding’s goon taking a baseball bat to the legs of Nancy Kerrigan — now that was a feud. Reggie Miller vs. Spike Lee, Tupac vs. Biggie and Shawn Kemp vs. Contraceptives were real feuds.

Sergio vs. Tiger just speaks to the wussification of sports, how far we’ve fallen, the level of damage done by well-intentioned sports leagues and their commissioners.

Whatever you call it, there's still nothing like a good 'ol fashioned (albeit comparatively tame) rivalry to get extra viewers to the TV screens.

NBC earned a 5.7 overnight Nielsen rating for the final round of The Players Championship yesterday, which saw Tiger Woods win by two strokes over David Lingmerth, Jeff Maggert and Kevin Streelman for his first win at TPC Sawgrass since ’01. The rating is tied with Woods’ win in ’01 as the best final round for the event since ’91. The 5.7 overnight also is up 68% from a 3.4 overnight for the final round in ’12 and ’11, which saw Matt Kuchar and K.J. Choi win the PGA Tour event, respectively.

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