S.F. Examiner: Amidst global turmoil, sports trudge forward in Europe

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

PARIS — Unable to find Giants or Athletics results in L’Equipe, the historic French sports daily, one goes to the Internet and ESPN and gets not, say, the Red Sox but so help me Qarabag FK, an Azerbaijani soccer team. Yikes.

Not until I open the Examiner website do I discover the Giants have been in a free fall that began in San Diego, of all places, and continued at Fenway Park. The A’s unfortunately have been in a free fall since April.

Read the full story here.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

Global Golf Post: It's Harder Than Ever To Win Majors

By Art Spander
Global Golf Post

TROON, SCOTLAND — Thomas Brent Weekley, better known as "Boo," understands golf far better than most, that is if anyone, pro or amateur, star or hacker, is able to understand golf. A while back Weekley told The Wall Street Journal — yes, Boo, the alligator wrestler, and The Journal seem an odd combination — that if you win a major "all you get is more hype."

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2016 Global Golf Post

Newsday (N.Y.): J.B. Holmes finishes alone in third in two-man British Open

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — J.B. Holmes finished third in a two-man race.

They say anything can happen in golf, that a couple of bogeys by one player and a couple of birdies by another can erase a lead in a few holes. But when Holmes began the final round of the British Open on Sunday, eight shots behind eventual winner Henrik Stenson and seven back of runner-up Phil Mickelson, he wasn’t thinking of a championship.

Read the full story here.

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Newsday (N.Y.): British Open: Henrik Stenson wins duel with Phil Mickelson for title

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — It doesn’t get any better than this, a golf championship in the land where the game was born, with two players, one of the game’s best, the other trying after years to break through, throwing caution to the considerable wind and birdies at each other in a repetitive display of brilliance and excitement.

Henrik Stenson finished in front, with Phil Mickelson second. Sport was the winner. There were no losers.

Read the full story here.

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Newsday (N.Y.): Henrik Stenson leads British Open, Phil Mickelson a shot back

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — One hole on this blustery, chilly Saturday and the leader became the chaser, the hunted the hunter. For the first time in the 145th British Open, the man in front when the final putt was holed was not Phil Mickelson.

First place after 54 holes belongs to Henrik Stenson, who at 40 probably is nearer his first major championship than anytime in his career, having swept from one stroke behind to one in front on the 220-yard par-3 17th that like most of the back nine at Royal Troon played into a wind that at times gusted above 25 mph.

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Newsday (N.Y.): Jordan Spieth dealing with high expectations from media

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — Jordan Spieth is learning what so many athletes already know: After you win a championship — in his case, two championships, the Masters and U.S. Open — people nod their heads and then in so many words ask what you’ve done lately.

Not a great deal other than answer questions he doesn’t particularly like, any more than he didn’t like the way he played the 12th hole the final round of the Masters in April, taking a triple-bogey seven and tossing away the tournament.

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Newsday (N.Y.): France’s Clement Sordet writes ‘Pray for Nice’ on hat at British Open

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — Clement Sordet said he tried not to think about it. But that was impossible for the French golf pro and for virtually everyone else.

Sordet finished his second round at the British Open on Friday and then spoke about the tragedy in Nice, where a truck rammed into a celebrating crowd during a Bastille Day fireworks display Thursday night along a seaside boulevard. Officials said 84 people were killed and 202 were injured.

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Newsday (N.Y.): British Open: Phil Mickelson keeps lead in rainy second round

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — This was the kind of day Phil Mickelson rarely gets at home, golf against the elements, when a cool head and a dry grip are no less important than a consistent swing. The kind of day — classic Scotland, wind and rain — that Mickelson, a California kid, said he relishes.

It was the kind of day — gray, gloomy and mainly wet — that Soren Kjeldsen has experienced during much of his golfing life in his native Denmark. “I’m used to playing in bad weather,’’ he said. “You don’t stay inside, because you miss too many days.”

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Newsday (N.Y.): Rory Mcllroy is in contention at British Open despite double bogey

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — After others, especially those involved with Great Britain’s Olympic team, had taken their shots at him, verbal of course, Rory McIlroy on Thursday took his shots at Royal Troon in the British Open, the golfing kind. With one exception, they were effective.

In his first Open Championship round in two years — the winner in 2014, he missed 2015 because of an ankle injury — McIlroy shot a two-under 69. But for one 6 iron hit too well, he would have been further under.

Read the full story here.

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Newsday (N.Y.): British Open: Phil Mickelson laments missed chance at history

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — Phil Mickelson’s try at history missed by the distance of a gnat’s eyelash. An 18-foot putt on the final hole of the British Open’s first day agonizingly spun out of the cup, coming to rest oh so close to the first 62 ever in a major golf championship.

“I want to shed a tear right now,” said Mickelson, only half joking. “That putt on 18 was an opportunity to do something historical. I knew it, and with a foot to go, I thought I had it done.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.

S.F. Examiner: Miller brings candid style to the booth at British Open

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — He was the skinny, blond kid from out in the avenues, a student at San Francisco’s Lincoln High, not far from the Coast, just another golfer in a school rich with them.

Some you might not remember or ever knew, but they could play, people such as Bob Lunn, who won the Amateur Pub Links, Doug Nelson, Ron O’Connor and Tom O’Kane. And one person you certainly would know, Johnny Miller.

Read the full story here.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

Newsday (N.Y.): British Open at Royal Troon: Where golf returns to its roots

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — Golf has returned to its homeland, to the rain, wind and green hills of Scotland, a place of kings, kilts and courses with rhythmic names such as Auchterarder, Machrihanish, and the one where the 145th British Open — known here as the Open Championship — begins Thursday at Royal Troon.

The game was created on the Scottish links land in the Middle Ages. It is old as forever and modern as now, with changes in personnel certainly, in attire and equipment yet still affixed to the basic principle: Each swing of each club, from driver to putter, counts one stroke.

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Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Elephant man Todd Hamilton returns to British Open

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — Todd Hamilton won the 2004 British Open here, but it was an elephant that became the story.

Back then nobody really knew much about Hamilton except that he was from the Illinois town where a circus elephant named Norma Jean was hit by a bolt of lightning and buried in the city square.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Jordan Spieth struggled with decision to skip Rio Olympics

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — Jordan Spieth insisted the decision not to play golf in the Rio Olympics, which came only 24 hours earlier, was the hardest he has been forced to make in his young life.

“I can honestly say that,” the 22-year-old Spieth said Tuesday. “Harder than trying to decide what university to go to. Whether to turn professional and leave school. This was something I very much struggled with.”

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Newsday (N.Y.): Andy Murray wins 2nd Wimbledon title by beating Milos Raonic

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

WIMBLEDON, England — It’s axiomatic in football and baseball that defense wins. Pitching, of course, is a major part of defense. If the other team doesn’t score, it’s impossible to lose.

In the Wimbledon men’s final, Andy Murray demonstrated that the concept is no less applicable to tennis.

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Newsday (N.Y.): Serena Williams puts pressure behind her, finally collects her 22nd Grand Slam championship

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

WIMBLEDON, England — The opponent had been herself as much as the women on the other side of the net. Serena Williams finally confessed that she had been vexed as much by expectations, by pressure, by the attempt to win that magical 22nd Grand Slam title, as by anyone else’s serve or forehand.

Her actions said as much. When Williams beat stubborn Angelique Kerber, 7-5, 6-3, on Saturday — to catch 22 and Steffi Graf for her seventh Wimbledon title, ending a streak of three consecutive Slams without a championship — she flopped unhesitatingly on her back atop the grass of Centre Court.

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Newsday (N.Y.): Serena Williams expresses concern over racial tension

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

WIMBLEDON, England -- It didn't take long for the British media to ask Wimbledon champion Serena Williams about the growing racial tension across the pond.

"I feel anyone in my color in particular is of concern," said Williams, when asked about the police shootings of African-Americans in Louisiana and Minnesota last week.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Milos Raonic beats Roger Federer in five sets in Wimbledon semifinal

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

WIMBLEDON, England—For Roger Federer, it might have been a last great hurrah.

Time and a young Canadian caught up with Federer on Friday in the Wimbledon men’s semifinals, with Milos Raonic scoring a 6-3, 6-7 (3), 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 win in what appeared to be a changing of the guard.

Read the full story here.

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Newsday (N.Y.): Wimbledon is Serena Williams’ fourth chance at Grand Slam No. 22

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

WIMBLEDON, England — Serena Williams said she feels different at this Wimbledon, “more relaxed, more at peace than I have been in the past.”

Is she trying to make believers out of us, or out of herself?

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Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Serena Williams reaches Wimbledon final, but sister Venus ousted in semis

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

WIMBLEDON, England — Serena Williams never lost her serve. Sister Venus had trouble even holding hers. And so one last all-Williams final at Wimbledon, where they’ve made so much history — and, in Serena’s case, still making it — is not to be.

Serena needed only 48 minutes to crush Russia’s bewildered Elena Vesnina, 6-2, 6-0, on Thursday in the first women’s semifinal on Centre Court, dropping only three of a possible 31 points on her serve. “Serve is very important for me,” Serena affirmed.

Read the full story here. 

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