Sabtu, 30 September 2017
Presidents Cup 2017: Breaking down the US and International teams (and why the match could be close) - GolfDigest.com
The popular narrative heading into this week's Presidents Cup at Liberty National Golf Club has been the potential for another lopsided American victory in an event dominated by lopsided American victories. And there are reasons why U.S. captain Steve Stricker should be optimistic about his 12-man squad's chances. There's little question the U.S. team has golfers who have played closer to their peak form in 2017, suggesting they're games are in better shape for the rigors that await in the shadow of New York City. The U.S. side's average World Ranking is 15.5 compared to the Internationals 31.6, an indicator of the home team potentially being sharper entering the competition.
But before simply handing over the trophy to Stricker's crew and concluding that the Presidents Cup is permanently broke, consider a few statistics that don't necessarily predict a walkover. For one thing, the U.S. had six rookies playing in the event, none of whom have any Ryder Cup experience either. By way of comparison, International team captain Nick Price has just four rookies on his roster.
Additionally, of the six veterans on Stricker's team, the "experience" they bring can be viewed through a skeptical lens. Consider that their combined record in the event is only 38-36-16, barely above .500. Even more surprising is the combined singles record of the returning U.S. players in previous Presidents Cup: 4-12-4. Again, by way of comparison, the International team's returning golfers have combined for a 11-9-2 singles record.
This hints that if the International side can keep the matches close heading into Sunday, the potential for an upset surely exists—and the likelihood of a lopsided win will float away in the nearby Hudson.
Here's a breakdown of the individual players on both Presidents Cup rosters:
UNITED STATES
Daniel Berger, 24
PGA Tour wins: 2
World Ranking: 24
Presidents Cup appearances: Rookie
Kevin Chappell, 31
PGA Tour wins: 1
World Ranking: 25
Presidents Cup appearances: Rookie
Rickie Fowler, 28
PGA Tour wins: 4
World Ranking: 7
Presidents Cup appearances: 1 (2015)
Overall record: 1-3-0
Foursomes: 1-1-0
Four-Ball: 0-1-0
Singles: 0-1-0
Charley Hoffman, 40
PGA Tour wins: 4
World Ranking: 23
Presidents Cup appearances: Rookie
RELATED: The unusual story behind the making of Liberty National
Dustin Johnson, 33
PGA Tour wins: 16 (1 major)
World Ranking: 1
Presidents Cup appearances: 2 (2011, 2015)
Overall record: 4-4-1
Foursomes: 3-0-1
Four-Ball: 0-3-0
Singles: 1-1-0
Kevin Kisner, 33
PGA Tour wins: 2
World Ranking: 26
Presidents Cup appearances: Rookie
Brooks Koepka, 27
PGA Tour wins: 2 (1 major)
World Ranking: 11
Presidents Cup appearances: Rookie
Matt Kuchar, 39
PGA Tour wins: 7
World Ranking: 13
Presidents Cup appearances: 3 (2011, 2013, 2015)
Overall record: 4-7-2
Foursomes: 1-3-2
Four-Ball: 3-1-0
Singles: 0-3-0
RELATED: 11 things you might not remember happened at the Presidents Cup
Phil Mickelson, 47
PGA Tour wins: 42 (5 majors)
World Ranking: 30
Presidents Cup appearances: 11 (1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015)
Overall record: 23-16-12
Foursomes: 11-6-3
Four-Ball: 9-5-6
Singles: 3-5-3
Patrick Reed, 27
PGA Tour wins: 5
World Ranking: 20
Presidents Cup appearances: 1 (2015)
Overall record: 1-2-1
Foursomes: 0-2-0
Four-Ball: 1-0-0
Singles: 0-0-1
Jordan Spieth, 24
PGA Tour wins: 11 (3 majors)
World Ranking: 2
Presidents Cup appearances: 2 (2013, 2015)
Overall record: 5-4-0
Foursomes: 3-0-0
Four-Ball: 2-2-0
Singles: 0-2-0
Justin Thomas, 24
PGA Tour wins: 6 (1 major)
World Ranking: 4
Presidents Cup appearances: Rookie
TEAM
Average age: 31.4 (30 without Mickelson's 47)
Average PGA Tour wins: 8.5 (5.4 without Mickelson's 42)
Average World Ranking: 15.5
Combined Presidents Cup Record: 38-36-16
Combined Foursomes record: 19-12-6
Combined Four-Ball record: 15-12-6
Combined Singles record: 4-12-4
INTERNATIONAL TEAM
Jason Day, 33, Australia
PGA Tour wins: 10 (1 major)
World Ranking: 6
Presidents Cup appearances: 3 (2011, 2013, 2015)
Overall record: 4-8-3
Foursomes: 0-4-2
Four-Ball: 3-2-1
Singles: 1-2-0
Branden Grace, 29, South Africa
PGA Tour wins: 1
World Ranking: 37
Presidents Cup appearances: 2 (2013, 2015)
Overall record: 5-4-0
Foursomes: 2-1-0
Four-Ball: 2-2-0
Singles: 1-1-0
Emiliano Grillo, 25, Argentina
PGA Tour wins: 1
World Ranking: 59
Presidents Cup appearances: Rookie
RELATED: How Nick Prices is changing the perception the Presidents Cup
Adam Hadwin, 29, Canada
PGA Tour wins: 1
World Ranking: 46
Presidents Cup appearances: Rookie
Anirban Lahiri, 30, India
PGA Tour wins: 0
World Ranking: 68
Presidents Cup appearances: 1 (2015)
Overall record: 0-3-0
Foursomes: 0-1-0
Four-Ball: 0-1-0
Singles: 0-1-0
Si-Woo Kim, 22, South Korea
PGA Tour wins: 2
World Ranking: 36
Presidents Cup appearances: Rookie
Marc Leishman, 33, Australia
PGA Tour wins: 3
World Ranking: 15
Presidents Cup appearances: 2 (2013, 2015)
Overall record: 3-4-1
Foursomes: 1-2-1
Four-Ball: 0-2-0
Singles: 2-0-0
Hideki Matsuyama, 25, Japan
PGA Tour wins: 5
World Ranking: 3
Presidents Cup appearances: 2 (2013, 2015)
Overall record: 3-4-2
Foursomes: 1-2-1
Four-Ball: 1-1-1
Singles: 1-1-0
Louis Oosthuizen, 34, South Africa
PGA Tour wins: 1 (1 major)
World Ranking: 22
Presidents Cup appearances: 2 (2013, 2015)
Overall record: 5-3-2
Foursomes: 2-2-0
Four-Ball: 3-1-0
Singles: 0-0-2
Charl Schwartzel, 33, South Africa
PGA Tour wins: 2 (1 major)
World Ranking: 27
Presidents Cup appearances: 3 (2011, 2013, 2015)
Overall record: 6-7-1
Foursomes: 0-4-1
Four-Ball: 4-2-0
Singles: 2-1-0
Adam Scott, 37, Australia
PGA Tour wins: 13 (1 major)
World Ranking: 23
Presidents Cup appearances: 7 (2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015)
Overall record: 13-17-5
Foursomes: 6-6-2
Four-Ball: 3-8-3
Singles: 4-3-0
Jhonattan Vegas, 33, Venezuela
PGA Tour wins: 3
World Ranking: 38
Presidents Cup appearances: Rookie
TEAM
Average age: 29.9
Average PGA Tour wins: 3.5
Average World Ranking: 31.6
Combined Presidents Cup Record: 39-50-14
Combined Foursomes record: 12-22-7
Combined Four-Ball record: 16-19-5
Combined Singles record: 11-9-2
How Outlander Risked Claire's Likability for a More Emotionally Nuanced Story - Vanity Fair
This post contains frank discussion of Outlander Season 3, Episode 3, “All Debts Paid.” If you’ve not yet watched the latest episode of Starz’s time-traveling Scottish romance, now is the time to leave.
Most actors working in television these days would kill to have one morally complex death on a well-watched, well-regarded series like Outlander. But Tobias Menzies got to have two. The actor stole the show in the Season 3 premiere, especially when Menzies improvised his villainous character, Black Jack Randall, reaching out in futile yearning as he collapsed into the arms of Jamie Fraser (Sam Hueghan) during the Battle of Culloden. And this week, it was Claire (Caitriona Balfe) who wrapped a dying (well, already dead) Menzies in her arms as Outlander fans said a final goodbye to poor Frank Randall.
The showrunners have spoken at length about expanding Claire’s story in Season 3 from the books so that she and Jamie can share equal screen time during their long separation. But in the end, they also wound up creating a compelling and emotionally rich story for Frank—at times, at the expense of sympathy for Claire. It was a risky move, but one that paid off beautifully in Frank and Claire’s final moments.
In the novels, the twenty-year-long marriage of Claire and Frank Randall is told largely in flashback. As show watchers did last season, readers learn that Frank died suddenly in the late 1960s via a passing comment from Claire. But in Season 3, Outlander wound back the clock to show us the long slow death of the Randall marriage. Claire, it’s clear, is never able to let go of Jamie. (This would hardly be a story about star-crossed soulmates if she could.) During a series of confrontations that spool out over decades, Frank observes, accurately, that their bedroom is “far too crowded” with the memory of Jamie. In his final confrontation with Claire, Frank theorizes that it was their daughter Brianna, with her bright red hair, who kept the memory of Jamie alive all these years. Without Brianna, could Claire have forgotten Jamie and found happiness with Frank over time? Claire dramatically responds: “That amount of time doesn’t exist.”
Her steadfast devotion to Jamie is romantic, sure, but it also makes her outrage towards Frank often feel unjust. She lashes out at him for an instance in which his mistress, Sandy, shows up at the house and embarrasses her. But it’s hard for Claire to have the moral high ground when, time-travel-induced excuses aside, she cheated on Frank and gave her heart away, forever, to another person. She then chose to continue to live with Frank. Denying her husband both love and his right to achieve that kind of happiness for himself makes Claire seem enormously unsympathetic. At least for a time.
Adaptive changes also weigh this long, slow conflict in Frank’s favor. As he is in the book, Frank is devoted to young Brianna while Claire absents herself from the family and buries herself in her work. But the Starz series also turns Frank’s multiple infidelities from the book into one long-running affair with a woman whom he claims to love. There aren’t a string of “betrayals”—just one relationship which both he and Claire agreed he might pursue. Also gone is his repugnant racism. In the book, it’s easier to write Frank off as a bad person after he says some nasty things about Claire’s friendship with her African-American colleague, Joe, and his son Lenny. (This is far from the only change from the books in this episode, and you can read showrunner Ron D. Moore discuss Murtagh’s unexpected survival here.)
Instead of a racist philanderer, the show version of Frank becomes a heartbroken man who stays with a woman he still loves for fear of losing his daughter. Even during their most heated confrontations, Frank is fairly gentle. “This is why we were never good at charades, darling,” he wryly observes. This more nuanced Frank not only creates a far more complex fallout from Claire and Jamie’s love story, but also establishes yet another parallel for the separated Frasers. In his timeline, Jamie encounters a heartbroken man who (eventually) loves him: Lord John Grey (David Berry). Much like Claire and Frank, Jamie and John alternatively spar and find common ground and mutual understanding. Berry’s take on Grey, like Menzies’ on Frank, is enormously sympathetic and compelling. He also has a much easier job; Lord John Grey is a hugely popular character in the novels.
But for Frank, that extra dimension comes at the risk of making Claire somewhat unsympathetic—which constitutes brave storytelling from the Outlander team. We can feel for Claire and her heartbreak while also acknowledging that all-consuming heartbreak renders her selfish and occasionally unkind to Brianna and Frank. The swooning romance of Outlander might be its most broadly appealing feature (as in, even those who have never watched the show know it’s about sexy times in Scotland), but it won’t necessarily be its most enduring. In order to survive past the heady rush of the first few seasons and follow down the long and winding path laid by Diana Gabaldon’s books, Outlander will have to continue to build up its supporting players. Given what we saw this week with Frank on his way out and Lord John Grey on his way in, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Jumat, 29 September 2017
Nick Jonas Reads Hilarious Thirst Tweets - YouTube
"I can tell you this, I am definitely not your daddy..."
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'To Donald Trump,' by Leland Melvin, former NASA Astronaut and NFL Player - Boing Boing
Leland Melvin is the astronaut in that fabulous NASA photo with his two dogs. He is an engineer and former NASA education leader, and the author of 'Chasing Space: An Astronaut's Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances.' He shared this essay with friends today, and I thought you'd like to read it, too.—XJ
To Donald Trump
I believe in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of this country even though at the time they were drafted, their tenets of life, liberty justice for all and eventual freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press and petition amendment ratified in Dec 1791, only applied to a select group of people and not ones that looked like me.
Donald Trump, I listened to your Alabama rally rant and could not believe how easily you say what you say.
We have become numb to your outlandish acts, tweets and recent retweet of you knocking down Hillary Clinton with a golf ball that you hit.
Donald Trump, your boorish and disgusting actions are not funny. They actually promote violence against women especially when your followers act out what you say.
I used to walk the grounds of UVA in Charlottesville, VA as a graduate student only to watch in horror as those same grounds became a battlefield being trod by Nazi and anti-Semitic worshippers armed with assault style weapons ready to fight to make America White again. (their words). You actually said there were nice people on both sides. People armed and ready to kill other Americans for the purpose of eradicating Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Mexicans, Asians, Latinas and even the first real Americans, Native Americans to make America Great Again were “nice people”?
Comparing this to what you say in condemnation of an unarmed black man peacefully protesting by exercising his constitutional First Amendment rights by silently taking a knee is appalling, unnerving and reprehensible.
Today, you called Colin Kaepernick “a son-of-a-bitch.”
You said he should be fired.
You are calling his white mother a bitch.
The strong contrast in language for a black man and a Nazi is very telling. Do you have any sense of decency or shame in what you say to the American people that are part of your duty to serve respectfully with dignity, presidentially?
Our National Anthem has been edited to try not to offend, because when Francis Scott Key penned the song he watched freed slaves fighting for the British and wrote this stanza:
“And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
I guess if I were a slave back then I probably would have done anything to obtain freedom from my American oppressors who were whipping, killing, raping, dismembering, hanging or releasing the dogs on people like me all under our Constitution.
In 1814 former slaves fought with the British for their freedom from their American enslavers.
Key witnessed a battle from a ship off the Maryland shore at Fort McHenry, which inspired him to write what became our National Anthem.
I served my country not in the military, but as 1 of 362 American Astronauts that have explored the universe to help advance our civilization. Not just Americans, but all humans. I also was briefly in the NFL and stood for the National Anthem with my hand over my heart. What makes us great is our differences and respecting that we are all created equally even if not always treated that way.
Looking back at our planet from space really helps one get a bigger perspective on how petty and divisive we can be. Donald Trump, maybe you should ask your good friend Mr. Putin to give you a ride on a Soyuz rocket to our International Space Station and see what it’s like to work together with people we used to fight against, where your life depends on it. See the world and get a greater sense of what it means to be part of the human race, we call it the Orbital Perspective.
Donald Trump, please know that you are supposed to be a unifier and a compassionate and empathetic leader. If you can’t do the job then please step down and let someone else try. I pray that you do the right thing.
May God bless you.
Sincerely,
Leland Melvin
Former Astronaut and NFL Player
Leland Melvin's official NASA photo with his dogs Jake and Scout.
Leland Melvin's official NASA photo with his dogs Jake and Scout.