| Heisman Trust expected to meet Tuesday By 2010-09-13T16:59:18ZNEW YORK (AP) -- The Heisman Trophy Trust is expected to hold its monthly meeting Tuesday, but there has been no indication from the group about whether a decision on Reggie Bush and the 2005 award is coming soon.... hosted.ap.org |
Padres drop back into 2nd with 3-1 loss to Dodgers By 2010-09-24T10:03:13ZLOS ANGELES (AP) -- The Dodgers were getting tired of being doormats for pennant-contending San Diego. So Andre Ethier and Hiroki Kuroda sent the Padres back down the I-5 freeway for their next series against Cincinnati with a critical loss that pushed them back into second place in the NL West.... hosted.ap.org |
Ryder Cup 2010: Will rain drive competition from UK to the continent? | Paul Hayward The FedEx Cup ensures the Ryder Cup is more likely to be played in bad weather when played in BritainWhile golfers on both sides were stuffing their pockets at the toweringly lucrative FedEx Cup last week, a Ryder Cup in Wales was waiting deep in the autumn schedule, hoping the Atlantic would not pick up its watery depths and dump them on Celtic Manor. This prayer went unanswered as the fronts swept in and October dawned with the architects of this proud week for Wales hunched against the gales.Society's need to find someone to blame cannot lead us to the Welsh, who can hardly be admonished for their westerly climate, so how about asking why this supposedly pivotal and emotionally unsurpassable tournament was shunted back another week to accommodate a pork-barrel dive, from which the USA's Jim Furyk motored home with a $10m bonus?The Ryder Cup's dirty secret is that the more acquisitive modern player sees it as time torched for not much monetary gain. Relentless hype and the militarisation of the event by the USA team provide the edge missing from the largely Corinthian make-up of the contest.The Ryder Cup finds non‑financial reasons to demand attention and finds them rather well. But the dollar is still winning by nailing the competition on the end of the serious stuff. The subtext is: let's get the rankings and the cash shared out before we reach for the blazers and speeches. Plonked down from 1-3 October, Samuel Ryder's brainchild is an afterthought.Late-season greed may seem an easy target, especially as Europe's players are equally acquisitive in the Arcadian autumn of the American Tour. But the Ryder Cup cannot work both sides of the street and expect its public not to notice.On one pavement it shouts about the glories and seduces us with mood music and battle cries. Across the road, it makes Celtic Manor wait until winter is creeping near and subjects tens of thousands of spectators with expensive tickets to weather‑induced interruptions and a miserable trudge through mud.Of course rain might have drenched this first day in July or August or September. August, especially, was a parody of summer: a grim lowering of the British spirit towards winter. This country could no more guarantee the Ryder Cup three bright days than it could a British winner at Wimbledon.The point is that the risk of abject weather and bad light was increased by the choice of dates and will be even greater in 2014 if, as the word on the street suggests, the PGA Tour of America have offered the third week in October to the host venue, Gleneagles. A forerunner of the underwater Ryder Cup was staged at that Scottish Eden in 1921. Ten American golfers took on a Great Britain team in the International Challenge and the Scotsman reported: "The sun lit up the golden glory of the gorse." Honeyed prose is unlikely to be unfurled four years from now if the Ryder Cup tees off in Scotland a week short of November.The political virus is the antipathy of the PGA Tour, who set up the Presidents Cup partly as a rival to the event now drying itself in Wales. The Ryder Cup is profitable for its two owners, the PGA of America and the European Tour, but the body that lays out the American calendar has no incentive to clear space or say no to sponsors for someone else's ceremonial shindig. The PGA Tour point a finger at NBC and their college football TV commitments.This was the latest Ryder Cup start since 1967. Valderrama, in 1997, was also beset by rain, in Spain, so Wales is understandably aggrieved to be cast as a uniquely sodden outpost to which the Ryder Cup was unwise to venture. This will cause deep ill feeling among the hosts.A collateral cost of these disruptions, though, is that people will question how the staging rights came to be awarded to a course many experts see as a simulation of America, after heavy lobbying by Sir Terry Matthews, its owner, in pursuit of a personal obsession.A starker risk is that the Ryder Cup will be driven out of Britain by this country's inability to provide appropriate conditions so late in the year. From 2018, golf has embraced that tedious saga known as the bid process, and France, Germany, Holland, Portugal and Spain have already had the pleasure of a visit from the Cup's new evaluation panel."It's a great shame but the schedule was dictated by the FedEx Cup. The FedEx wasn't invented when this tournament was launched but it is now and that's just the way it is," says Paul Azinger, the USA captain in 2008. "Because of the FedEx the Ryder Cup just keeps getting forced back and back and back." To where it stood on day one here, in a puddle.Ryder CupGolfPaul Haywardguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Rockets beat Nets 91-81, Yao plays 19 minutes By ANITA CHANG 2010-10-13T17:07:10ZBEIJING (AP) -- Yao Ming played only 19 minutes while easing back from foot surgery, scoring nine points and delighting his home fans as the Houston Rockets defeated the New Jersey Nets 91-81 in a preseason game Wednesday.... hosted.ap.org |
Webber fastest in Korean practice • Championship leader fastest in practice on new track• Alonso is on his eighth and last engine of seasonThe controversial new circuit in Yeongam, which was only passed fit to stage Sunday's inaugural Korean grand prix less than two weeks ago, has won the approval of Mark Webber, the championship leader.Webber was the fastest man going into tomorrow morning's qualifying session, after coming out on top of this afternoon's practice session. He described the track as "pretty enjoyable"."The track changed a lot today," he said. "It was obviously a brand new venue for everyone as we all know, and very, very slippery in P1 [first practice]. Then, it started to get a little bit more sensible as the day went on. There is a lot of information to gather on a new venue and we have done that pretty successfully so, yeah, we are pretty optimistic. It has got a couple of unique sections which are always good. It's nice to have a bit of a challenge at a new venue we go to."Just the pit lane entry and exit are a little bit 'Mickey Mouse', getting on and off the track, but apart from that they have done a remarkable job. We are really clutching at straws to be able to try and criticise anyone here."The track was also praised by the Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg, who said: "The circuit is good. It is a nice track to drive and it should be good for racing because there are long straights and hairpins where you can try and overtake, but on the other hand there is a lot of graining and whenever we have graining that is normally when the most exciting races happen."The circuit has improved as the weekend has gone on and rubber has gone down on it, although if it rains the surface will have the consistency of "oiled snot", in the memorable words of one former driver.Fernando Alonso, who has revived his title hopes in the past three races, also approved of the track and although he believes that Red Bull will again dominate, he says they should not be as superior as they were in the last round, in Japan, when Sebastian Vettel won from his team-mate, Webber."We feel that maybe it's not as easy as it was for Red Bull in Suzuka, even if they are still the favourites," the Spaniard said. "I think there are possibilities to overtake on turn three and turn four as well."Alonso is using his eighth engine of the season and, under Formula One regulations, that has to be his last. "If we have any reliability issues it will be really traumatic as it would be almost impossible then to recover the points we would need if we want to continue to fight with Red Bull and McLaren," said Ferrari's team principal, Stefano Domenicali. "We cannot really have any problems otherwise it is finished."All the leading teams found themselves going into qualifying encouraged by their performances in today's second practice session. Webber finished ahead of Alonso, with Lewis Hamilton, who had dominated the morning practice, in third. But there were problems for Hamilton's team-mate, Jenson Button. McLaren had to use fire extinguishers after the rear of his car became overheated, but he finished fifth, as he had earlier in the day."The car is working well around here," Button said. "It's nice to drive and the circuit is quite flowing, although there's a lot of dust. If you put a wheel only slightly off line there's a huge amount of dust, which might be an issue in the race, but apart from that the circuit is fun to drive."Little can be read into Friday runarounds but it was marginally surprising that Vettel, second and first in the last two races, finished only seventh in today's afternoon session.Mark WebberFernando AlonsoRed BullFerrariFormula OneMotor sportPaul Weaverguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |