Connect with us

Sports

Can Rory McIlroy finally win the Masters to complete his elusive career grand slam?

Published

on

Can Rory McIlroy finally win the Masters to complete his elusive career grand slam?

Rory McIlroy is a green jacket away from a career grand slam, something only five players have done in the history of golf. But each year, the Masters has eluded him. He has seven top-10 finishes in the tournament, including second in 2022, yet each year has been denied.

Maybe he’s trying too hard.

“This golf course gets you to chase things a little more than other golf courses if you make a bogey or get yourself out of position,” said McIlroy, 34, among the favorites in the 2024 Masters, which begins Thursday. “Because it always tempts you to do something you think you can do.”

Advertisement

It’s important to remember, he said this week, that the Masters is a 72-hole golf tournament and you cannot win it from the first tee shot.

“I’m pretty confident in my golf game,” McIlroy said. “I think I can do most things, but sometimes you just have to take the conservative route and be a little more disciplined and patient.”

McIlroy is second in the World Golf Rankings behind Scottie Scheffler, although that metric is skewed because it doesn’t factor in LIV Golf events — and that competing tour has a significant footprint on this year’s Masters.

This year’s 13-member LIV contingent includes defending Masters champion Jon Rahm; Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson, who tied for second; and Patrick Reed, who finished fourth.

Rahm is looking to become the fourth player to win back-to-back Masters, joining Jack Nicklaus, who repeated in 1966, Nick Faldo (1990) and Tiger Woods (2002).

Advertisement

Rahm has played in five LIV events this year and has yet to win. But neither Nicklaus nor Faldo had won anywhere coming into the Masters the years they repeated, and Woods had won once. So coming to Augusta on a hot or cold streak is not an especially reliable predictor of how someone is going to do.

“I feel physically better than I did last year,” Rahm said. “But then once the competition starts, it doesn’t really matter. Once the gun goes off, whatever you feel is out the window; you’ve got to go out there and post a score.

“So it wouldn’t be the first time. It wouldn’t be the first time we hear somebody not feeling their best and winning.”

This also marks the fifth anniversary of Woods’ historic victory in 2019, when he overcame all odds to win his fifth Masters title.

Woods, 48, has a chance to set another Masters record by making the cut for a 24th consecutive time. But winning a sixth green jacket is almost inconceivable, especially considering he has played in only three full-field events since 2023, and finished just one: last year’s Genesis Invitational at Riviera. He withdrew from the Masters last year seven holes into the third round after aggravating a foot injury.

Advertisement

Then again, people have counted him out before.

Can Woods win?

“I still think I can,” he said.

Everyone figures to be battling the weather. At midday Wednesday, the forecast for Thursday was brutal, calling for thunderstorms in the early morning followed by a stronger band of heavy rain and thunderstorms from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The wind is expected to be whipping, with gusts of 40-45 mph, giving way to scattered showers in the afternoon and evening. The windy conditions could continue until Friday morning with eventual sunny skies Friday afternoon and through the weekend.

Advertisement

NBC analyst Brandel Chamblee said the player who will have the most pressure piled on his shoulders this week is McIlroy.

“You go back and look and there’s a pattern,” Chamblee said. “Every time, he seems to play his worst golf when it means the most — in other words, in the first round when he’s got to get off to a good start.”

Chamblee noted that in his last five Masters, McIlroy has an average score of 73.8 in the opening round.

“That speaks to not being in the right place mentally,” Chamblee said.

Woods said he’s confident McIlroy will eventually join him as the sixth career grand slam winner. Along with Woods, the others to win all four major championships were Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.

Advertisement

“No question he’ll do it at some point,” Woods said of McIlroy. “Rory’s too talented, too good. He’s going to be playing this event for a very long time. He’ll get it done. It’s just a matter of when.”

McIlroy was happy to hear that, but acknowledged there’s a difference between words and deeds.

“Yeah, it’s flattering,” he said. “It’s nice to hear, in my opinion, the best player ever to play the game say something like that. So, yeah, I mean, does that mean that it’s going to happen? Obviously not. But he’s been around the game long enough to know that I at least have the potential to do it. I know I’ve got the potential to do it too. It’s not as if I haven’t been a pretty good player for the last couple of decades.”

Finally, he conceded: “It’s nice to hear it when it comes out of his mouth.”

Advertisement

Sports

Packers’ head-coaching situation thrust into spotlight after playoff loss

Published

on

Packers’ head-coaching situation thrust into spotlight after playoff loss

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

The Green Bay Packers’ playoff exit on Saturday immediately put added focus on what the organization will do with head coach Matt LaFleur.

The NFL coaching cycle has been the wildest in recent memory, with veteran coaches like John Harbaugh and Pete Carroll being shown the door. Packers fans seemingly put LaFleur on the hot seat following their crushing defeat to the Chicago Bears.

Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur reacts during the wild-card playoff game against the Bears Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

Advertisement

ESPN’s Adam Schefter said Sunday that the Packers will have a major decision to make.

“The Green Bay Packers and their new president, Ed Policy, have a significant decision to make here in the coming days – and that is whether to extend Matt LaFleur’s contract. He’s currently got one year remaining, or to move on from him,” Schefter said. “If they moved on from him, he would automatically go near the top of coaches available and shakeup this current head-coaching cycle yet again.”

Schefter added that Harbaugh could be one of the names that would interest the Packers’ organization.

BEARS’ BEN JOHNSON GIVES FIERY MESSAGE TO TEAM AFTER PLAYOFF WIN: ‘F— THE PACKERS!’

Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur talks after the playoff game, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

Advertisement

“Notice how we said this belongs to the Packers’ president, Ed Policy. Well, the Packers’ former president from the back in the day was a man by the name of Bob Harlan,” Schefter explained. “Bob Harlan’s son, Brian Harlan, represents John Harbaugh. John Harbaugh is a Midwestern guy, who has a home in the Upper Peninsula, and a lot of people around the league have been wondering if the Packers decide to go in a different direction, if all of a sudden the Green Bay Packers might fall to the top of John Harbaugh’s list as the top available choice for him.

“This has been a wild, crazy coaching cycle, and we may be just scratching the surface.”

Green Bay Packers’ Matthew Golden celebrates his touchdown against the Bears Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Green Bay finished 9-7-1 this season. LaFleur is 76-40-1 as the Packers’ head coach with a 3-6 record in the playoffs.

Advertisement

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Sports

Crossroads students begin push to make pickleball a varsity sport

Published

on

Crossroads students begin push to make pickleball a varsity sport

For brothers Boone and Ford Casady, pickleball is more than just a game, it is a passion. The 16-year-old twins are among the top junior players on the planet, but more important to them than trophies and medals is a desire to spread the fastest-growing sport in America to high schools and colleges.

Their vision, combined with the persistence of fellow Crossroads sophomores Samantha Leeds and Hannah Carey, has birthed the L.A. High School Pickleball League, the first of its kind in California. The first match will be Jan. 24 at the Santa Monica Pickleball Center.

Teams from Crossroads, Brentwood, Windward, Palisades, Notre Dame and Santa Monica Pacifica Christian will participate, and possibly several more.

Matches will be biweekly with all schools competing at the same shared location. The match format is loosely based on high school tennis with three doubles lines, one singles line and “friendlies” — ensuring that beginners, alternates and developing players all get playing time. The season culminates with semifinals and a league championship.

“My brother and I grew up playing competitive tennis and baseball,” Boone said. “We’d been playing tennis since we were about 3 and in eighth grade we moved to Barcelona to train at the Emilio Sánchez Academy for tennis. We were first introduced to pickleball earlier while we were in Mexico playing with friends and we immediately fell in love with it. We entered our first tournament in Palm Springs and realized we’d found something special.

Advertisement

“We noticed that so many juniors were training and competing individually but there wasn’t a school-based structure like you have in other varsity sports. We decided to change that. We wanted girls to be involved from the start — it was important to us that the league be coed and inclusive to reflect how competitive girls pickleball already is. We’re also co-founders of the Crossroads Pickleball Club along with Samantha and Hannah and we’re working to grow participation on campus and across L.A.”

The four founders of the L.A. High School Pickleball League play mixed doubles.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Unlike most youth sports initiatives, the league was not created by adults or administrators, it was built entirely by students. Over the last two years they have coordinated with the Southern Section for recognition and guidance, worked with Crossroads administrators to establish pickleball as a school-sanctioned varsity sport, organized early intramural and inter-school tournaments, built communication networks among local high schools and helped other schools begin turning their club teams into varsity programs.

Advertisement

“In high school sports, students usually join a system that already exists,” Leeds said. “With pickleball, we had to build the system ourselves.”

Boone defeated Ford to earn the No. 1 seed at the 2024 Junior PPA National Championships, but they met again for the gold medal and this time Ford won. They also took the gold in doubles and finished No. 1 and No. 2 in the country in the 14s division.

At the 2025 Junior PPA National Championships, the brothers took silver and bronze in the Boys U16 singles and partnered for silver in doubles. They were also presented the Community Assist Award to acknowledge their initiative in starting the Los Angeles High School Pickleball League. They are straight-A students and play shortstop and third base on the varsity baseball team.

So far, their toughest competition in pickleball has been each other.

“Boone and I practice together all the time and we play against each other constantly,” Ford said. “Boone knows the part of my game to attack and I know what to do against him so we always have great matches. No matter who wins, we hug it out at the end.”

Advertisement

The siblings played in their first pro event of the year Saturday — the Masters Tournament in Palm Springs.

Leeds and Carey were introduced to pickleball in eighth grade.

“I remember leaving PE after playing pickleball, heading to soccer practice and honestly feeling kind of bored,” Leeds recalled. “All I wanted to do was keep playing pickleball.”

“Samantha and I got randomly paired to do pickleball in PE,” said Carey, who lost her home in the Palisades fire. “Most kids would sit out, look bored, or try to skip but as the pickleball nets went up our peers were engaged, exhilarated and connecting over their love of pickleball. So Samantha and I started making petitions to create a league.”

The girls, then 13, had a meeting with Anthony Locke, head of school at Crossroads, and made a pitch deck. Using her skills as a filmmaker Leeds created a short sizzle video to help show what pickleball could look like as a real school sport.

Advertisement

“We were told that forming school-based teams and leagues is a necessary first step towards eventual CIF recognition,” she said. “I created a Varsity Team Starter Kit, outlining the steps we used to establish pickleball as a school-sanctioned varsity sport. Leaders at other schools are actively using it to establish their own teams.”

Added Carey: “We connected with Boone and Ford, which was such an honor considering their talent and passion for the sport. We decided to join forces and use our resources together to further our process of creating a league.”

The inaugural season runs from January to March but beginning in the 2026-27 school year the plan is to move to the traditional winter sports window, November through January.

“Pickleball has the potential to become a true varsity sport at both the high school and college levels,” Boone said. “We’re so excited to help push it forward.”

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Sports

US figure skating power couple makes history with record breaking seventh national championship

Published

on

US figure skating power couple makes history with record breaking seventh national championship

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

U.S. figure skating stars Madison Chock and Evan Bates made history on Saturday with their record-setting seventh U.S. Figure Skating title in their final competition before the Milan Cortina Olympics.

The three-time reigning world champions, performing a flamenco-style dance to a version of the Rolling Stones hit “Paint It Black” from the dystopian sci-fi Western show “Westworld,” produced a season-best free skate and finished with 228.87 points.

“The feeling that we got from the audience today was unlike anything I’ve ever felt before,” Chock said.

Advertisement

Madison Chock and Evan Bates of United States perform during ISU World Figure Skating Championships – Boston, at TD Garden,  on March 28, 2025 in Boston, Massachusetts.  (Jurij Kodrun – International Skating Union/International Skating Union via Getty Images)

They’ll be the heavy favorites to win gold next month in Italy.

“I felt so much love and joy,” Chock continued, “and I’m so grateful for this moment.”

U.S. Figure Skating will announce its selections on Sunday.

Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik were second with 213.65 points and Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko were third with 206.95, making those two pairs the likely choices to join Chock and Bates on the American squad for the upcoming Winter Games.

Advertisement

The men’s medals also were to be decided on Saturday, though two-time world champion Ilia Malinin had built such a lead after his short program that the self-styled “Quad God” would have to stumble mightily to miss out on a fourth consecutive title.

The U.S. also has qualified the maximum of three men’s spots for the Winter Games, and competition is tight between second-place Tomoko Hiwatashi, fan favorite Jason Brown, Andrew Torgashev and Maxim Naumov to round out the nationals podium.

The last time Chock and Bates competed in the Olympics in 2022 in Beijing, they watched their gold initially go to an opponent who was later disqualified for doping violations.

Chock and Bates initially had to settle for team silver with their American teammates on the podium at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Team Russia and Kamila Valieva, who was 15 at the time, stood above them with their gold medals. 

It wasn’t until the end of January 2024, when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) found Valieva guilty of an anti-doping rule violation, when Chock, Bates and the U.S. were declared the rightful 2022 gold medalists. 

Advertisement

UN URGES COUNTRIES TO HONOR TRUCE DURING WINTER OLYMPICS, NOT DENY VISAS TO ANY NATION’S ATHLETES

Madison Chock and Evan Bates compete in championship ice dance at the U.S. figure skating championships Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024, in Columbus, Ohio.  (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Valieva tested positive for trimetazidine, a banned substance, during an anti-doping test at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in December 2021. She was suspended for four years and stripped of all competitive results since that date.

Chock and Bates spoke about what their message to Valieva would be today during an interview at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee media summit in October. 

“It’s hard to, I think, imagine what a 15-year-old has gone through and under that kind of situation,” Bates said. “And I know how stressful it is, being an elite athlete as an adult, as a 36-year-old. And I think that grace should be given to humans across the board. And we can never really know the full situation, at least from our point of view. … I genuinely don’t know what I would say to her.”

Advertisement

Chock added, “I would just wish her well like as I would. I think life is short. And, at the end of the day, we’re all human just going through our own human experience together. And regardless of what someone has or hasn’t done and how it has affected you, I think it’s important to remember we’re humans as a collective, and we’re all here for this, our one moment on earth, at the same time. And I just wish people to have healthy, happy lives, full of people that love them.”

Chock and Bates had to wait more than two years after the initial Olympics to get their rightful gold medals, and they were finally presented with them during a ceremony at the Paris Olympics last summer.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the USA perform in the Gala Exhibition during the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final Nagoya at IG Arena on December 07, 2025 in Nagoya, Japan.  (Atsushi Tomura – International Skating Union/International Skating Union via Getty Images)

Chock, Bates and teammates Karen Chen, Nathan Chen, Zachary Donohue, Brandon Frazier, Madison Hubbell, Alexa Knierim and Vincent Zhou were given a specialized gold medal ceremony to receive the medals in front of more than 13,000 fans. 

Advertisement

Chock and Bates became the first ice dancers to win three consecutive world championships in nearly three decades in March when they defeated Canadian rivals Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
 

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending