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The Golden State Warriors aren’t the only basketball team in town. Meet the Golden State Valkyries, the WNBA’s newest franchise, who are set to tip off their inaugural season on Friday.

The Valkyries will host the Los Angeles Sparks Friday evening at the Chase Center in San Francisco, marking the second matchup between the two teams in as many weeks. The Sparks narrowly defeated the Valkyries 83-82 in a preseason matchup last week.

The Valkyries are the league’s first expansion team since the Atlanta Dream joined the WNBA in 2008. Here’s everything you need to know about the newest team, from the Valkyries’ logo, roster and origin:

What is a Valkyrie?

Golden State selected a name that embodies its “fierce, bold and strong” identity. The WNBA’s 13th franchise is known as the Valkyries, which is derived from Norse mythology. According to Golden State, ‘Valkyries are a host of warrior women who are fearless and unwavering – flying through air and sea alike.’

The Valkyries drew inspiration from the franchise’s NBA counterpart, the Golden State Warriors. Both clubs are owned by Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, who wanted to create synergy between both teams.

‘We looked at a variety of team names, and we sort of landed in the Warriors-inspired space,’ said Amanda Chin, the Warriors’ Senior Vice President of Marketing. ‘For anybody who doesn’t know, a Valkyrie is a woman warrior. This is a host of women warriors who are responsible for granting an honorable afterlife for the bravest warriors.’

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr approved: ‘Fantastic name, beautiful colors, great logo. … You guys own this look. It’s beautiful and distinctive. I think our fans are going to love it.’

What is the Valkyries’ official colors, logo?

The team’s official colors are Valkyrie Violet which ‘symbolizes power, ambition, nobility, and women’s empowerment, much like purple has been used symbolically in modern history’ black, white and gold.

The Valkyries’ logo is a nod to the team’s Bay Area roots. It features the Bay Bridge uniquely shaped like wings with 13 suspension cables to represent becoming the 13th WNBA franchise. The bridge also doubles as a sword, which not only symbolizes ‘courage, power and authority,’ but showcases the weapon frequently depicted with Valkyries. There are more hidden gems featured in the logo, which Golden State breaks down below:

The outer shape of the logo is a V, reinforcing the V in Valkyries, which symbolizes the unity of a group of Valkyries in flight, and standing for victory.
The Bay Bridge is depicted to reinforce the team’s presence across the Bay, but specifically the tie between the team’s homes in both Oakland, where the team’s practice facility and front office is located, and San Francisco’s Chase Center, where the team will play all home games.
The bridge cables double as wings, a strong telegraphic symbol of Valkyries. The five triangles formed within the wings represent the five players facing each other on each side of the court.
The 13 lines coming from the top of the sword represent the Valkyries becoming the 13th active team in the WNBA.

The Valkyries unveiled a secondary logo in December, which features a golden Valkyrie figure.

Who is the Valkyries’ head coach?

Golden State named Natalie Nakase as the team’s first head coach in October. Nakase has worked alongside many brilliant basketball minds throughout her coaching career. Nakase served as an assistant coach under Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon the past two seasons and was a key piece in the Aces’ back-to-back WNBA championships (2022, 2023). Before that, Nakase spent 10 seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers, working her way up from a video coordinator role to be an assistant coach and player development coach for both the Clippers and their G League affiliate, the Agua Caliente Clippers.

Golden State Valkyries roster

G Carla Leite, 5′ 9′
F Kayla Thornton, 6′ 1′
F Stephanie Talbot, 6′ 2′
F Janelle Salaun, 6′ 2′
C Temi Fagbenle, 6′ 4′
C Kyara Linskens, 6′ 4′
G Tiffany Hayes, 5′ 10′
G Kate Martin, 6′ 0′
G Veronica Burton, 5′ 9′
F Cecilia Zandalasini, 6′ 2′
F Monique Billings, 6′ 4′
G Julie Vanloo, 5′ 8′

Valkyries unveil jerseys, get nod from Draymond Green

Golden State offered fans a first look at its inaugural jersey in December. The jersey, which comes in a white and black colorway for home and away games, features the team’s logo front and center in Valkyrie Violet. The white jersey is called the WNBA Nike Heroine Edition, while the black jersey is called the WNBA Nike Explorer Edition.

Warriors star Draymond Green was spotted wearing the Valkyries’ Nike Explorer Edition jersey on the sideline during the Warriors’ 99-93 win over the Houston Rockets in December.

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Center Brittney Griner and the Atlanta Dream will travel to play the Washington Mystics in the season opener on Friday.

It will be Griner’s regular-season debut as a member of the Dream after spending the last 11 years of her career with the Phoenix Mercury.

The Mystics announced forward/center Shakira Austin won’t play due to a leg injury. Austin missed significant time due to injury over the past two seasons. Washington will be withouth rookie Georgia Amoore due to an ACL injury and Aaliyah Edwards (lower back contusion). For the Dream, Jordin Canada is out with a right knee injury.

Commanders’ Jayden Daniels sits courtside

Everyone watches women’s sports, including a pair of Washington Commanders superstars. Quarterback Jayden Daniels and his newest receiver Deebo Samuel were seated court-side at CareFirst Arena on Friday.

Halftime: Dream 45, Mystics 41

The Dream led by as many as 12 points in the first half, but the Mystics responded and came within four points of Atlanta heading into halftime. Allisha Gray of the Dream has a game-high 19 points, shooting 5-of-8 from the field and 5-of-7 from three. Te-Hina Paopao added seven points in her WNBA regular season debut. Washington’s Kiki Iriafen and Sonia Citron are also making their regular season debuts and have seven and four points, respectively. The Mystics have outscored the Dream in the paint, 22-10.

Sonia Citron called for flagrant

Mystics rookie Sonia Citron was assessed a flagrant foul on the Dream’s Allisha Gray, making contact with Gray’s right arm as she attempted a 3-pointer. The shot went in and Gray made the free throw for a 30-22 lead. The Mystics kept it close with 3-pointers by Jade Melbourne and Emily Engstler.

End of Q1: Atlanta Dream 24, Washington Mystics 20

Washington’s rookies didn’t waste any time making a mark on their home court as Kiki Iriafen and Sonia Citron made the starting five. Iriafen had back-to-back layups in the opening minutes. Rookie Te-Hina PaoPao started for the Dream, draining a 3-pointer to give Atlanta a 17-14 lead. 

How to watch Dream vs. Mystics: TV, stream

Time: 7:30 p.m. ET
Location: CareFirst Arena in Washington D.C.
TV: ION
Stream: Fubo, WNBA League Pass (free league pass preview)

Watch the Dream vs. Mystics live with Fubo

Georgia Amoore has surgery

Rookie guard Georgia Amoore underwent successful surgery to repair a right ACL injury, the Mystics announced. She is out for the season.

Forward Aaliyah Edwards (lower back contusion) has been cleared to resume on-court activities and will be re-evaluated in approximately two weeks. Shakira Austin is also out for the Atlanta game with a leg injury.

Starting lineups

Washington Mystics

F Sonia Citron
F Kiki Iriafen
C Stefanie Dolson
G Brittney Sykes
G Seg Sutton

Atlanta Dream

F Rhyne Howard
F Brionna Jones
C Brittney Griner
G Allisha Gray
G Te-Hina PaoPao

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The Boston Red Sox’s City Connect uniforms have shifted from marathon to Monster motif.

The club will debut what it calls its ‘Fenway Greens’ kits Friday night at Fenway Park against Atlanta, with newly acquired ace Garrett Crochet modeling the togs against former Red Sox lefty Chris Sale.

It’s a significant departure from the Red Sox’s first City Connects – which were also the very first rollout in Major League Baseball’s series. The yellow and powder blue theme aimed to dovetail with the iconic Boston Marathon finish line, a perfect getup for their annual Patriots Day game. The club announced that those uniforms will remain a ‘core offering’ and will continue to be used on marathon Monday in April.

Yet with MLB aiming to keep the cash registers whirring and the fresh looks churning, the Red Sox and several other clubs have debuted a second City Connect uniform, certainly risking a downshift in vibes from their originals.

The Red Sox seemed to hit the mark again on the second go-around.

The green tops certainly make the playerse resemble walking, talking Green Monsters, the shade perfectly matching the famed wall. And while the club notes the yellow jersey numerals on the front are a tribute to the Fisk and Pesky foul poles, they also match the yellow used on the Monster scoreboard to reflect that the inning is ongoing in an out-of-town score.

The club will wear them on ‘select’ home dates throughout the season, though Friday home games tend to be the preferred leaguewide window for the alternate gear.

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Brock Purdy is anything but irrelevant now as the quarterback inked a five-year, $265 million extension with the San Francisco 49ers.

A team official confirmed the contract details to USA TODAY Sports’ Tyler Dragon. The person requested anonymity because the contract is not yet finalized.

The quarterback has been living an NFL dream life, rising from the ranks of being the last pick in the 2022 NFL draft to now earning a big payday from one of the league’s most historic franchises.

Purdy helped guide the 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance in his rookie season after injuries claimed the San Francisco quarterbacks. He has posted a 23-13 record in 36 regular season starts over those three seasons, earning a Pro Bowl appearance and finishing fourth in MVP voting for 2023.

San Francisco is coming off a down year, but will hope to compete once again amongst the league’s best in 2025.

They also finalized an extension with George Kittle earlier this offseason, inking the star tight end to a four-year deal worth up to $76.4 million with $40 million in guarantees, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. That made him the highest-paid tight end in NFL history.

Now Purdy gets his turn to cash in. Here’s a look at quarterback’s newest contract details.

Brock Purdy contract details

Purdy agreed to a five-year deal worth $265 million, according to reports.

The deal carries an average annual value (AAV) of $53 million, tying him the seventh highest-paid quarterback with the Detroit Lions’ Jared Goff, according to OverTheCap.

The 25-year-old was entering the final year of his rookie contract in 2025, which carried a cap hit of around $5.36 million after earning about $2.63 million for his first three seasons combined.

Brock Purdy stats

Purdy is coming off a 2024 season that saw him post a 6-9 record in 15 starts. He posted a career-low with a 65.9% completion rate, while tossing 12 interceptions and getting sacked 31 times – both career-highs.

By all accounts, it was a disappointing season for the quarterback in a year of disappointment for the 49ers. Despite that, Purdy has done nothing but mostly win since arriving in the Bay Area.

It remains to be seen if perception will change following the big-money deal, but it’s clear that Purdy will have to be the driving force behind 49ers’ victories moving forward.

After all, they aren’t paying him to be a passenger.

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No, it’s not too early and the sample size isn’t too small. At the same time, nearly 120 games remain, plenty of time for early trends to head south or trend upward – though time is dwindling for teams and individuals hoping for a turnaround.

With that, USA TODAY Sports takes a look at seven startling numbers as the season sails into the second quarter:

68: Aaron Judge’s hit total

Wait, why would someone use hits – a metric not in vogue since Ichiro Suzuki was still an All-Star – to illustrate Judge’s utter dominance? Why not his major league-leading 1.279 OPS or 252 wRC+, or even, egad, his .412 batting average?

Well, the thing is Judge has not buffed out his OPS or even his batting average by slugging home runs and taking his walks. No, his 68 hits also lead the major leagues, and puts him on a – gulp – 256-hit pace, which would be third-most all-time and just six behind Ichiro’s record 262 knocks set in 2004.

What we’re seeing here is something akin to the perfect offensive season. In a sense, Judge’s line-drive singles are nearly as impressive as his gargantuan home runs, in that he’s taking exactly what the pitcher is giving him in nearly every plate appearance.

Of course, it’d be against all odds that Judge keeps up this pace. But we’re nearly to Memorial Day and he’s still firmly north of .400. Kinda scary.

.643: Padres’ winning percentage

Over 162 games, that’s 104 wins. And while the Padres were popular favorites to snag a wild card spot, they’re actually built better than pundits even imagined.

The rotation sports a 3.38 ERA, second to the Mets in the NL, as Nick Pivetta looks like the steal of the offseason and Randy Vasquez has posted three straight excellent outings, joining the ace free-agents-to-be, Dylan Cease and Michael King. In a non-Ohtani universe, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill might be 1-2 in MVP voting.

And while their vaunted farm system has thinned out a bit from years of win-now aggression, the trade deadline may represent a last go-for-it moment before an anticipated payroll draw-down in 2026. Yes, the Dodgers should be concerned.

Four: Number of AL Central teams in playoff position

Do you believe in miracles? It felt like the Central already got one last year when the Guardians, Royals and Tigers reached the playoffs – and all won at least one series. For a division featuring lower-revenue clubs that hadn’t sent a squad to the World Series since 2016, it felt highly aberrational.

Well, don’t look now, but it might be even more of a Party In The Mid-USA come October. The Tigers are now the best team in the AL. The Royals went on a 15-2 heater to climb into contention. Cleveland is Clevelanding and just hired Corey Kluber to backfill its pitching intelligentsia. And the Twins would currently be the third wild card.

Never thought we’d say this, but the big-money behemoths in the East and West might be “one-bid leagues” come October.

14-4: Twins’ record since adding Kody Clemens to roster

OK, correlation does not imply causation, but good luck figuring out the about-face going on in Minneapolis, where the Twins started out 7-15, a grim addendum to their 7-18 collapse last year.

But now, everything is coming up Rocco. Such as a doubleheader sweep of Baltimore in which catcher Christian Vazquez and Clemens each hit go-ahead three-run homers (Vazquez’s first of the year, Clemens’ second) to flip both games. A day later, DeShawn Keirsey Jr. – hitting in the nine hole like Vazquez – hit a two-run homer to open the scoring in a 4-0 win that gave Minnesota six wins in 10 days against the Orioles.

When random players end up in big spots and come through against all odds, you know you’re living well. It’s the sort of sequencing no algorithm can dial up. Beware these guys.

19-30: Combined home record for A’s, Rays

Turns out couch-surfing is no way to live that MLB life. The temporary digs for the Athletics (a self-imposed exile) and Rays (a true forces-of-nature situation) in minor league parks hasn’t gone particularly well.

The A’s rank 28th in home ERA, at 5.81, getting outscored 138-89 as opposing sluggers take to Yolo County like they’re facing Class AAA pitching; their road ERA is a top-tier 3.88.

It’s a less extreme split in Tampa Bay, where the Yankee Stadium-replica park has resulted in a 116-107 run-scoring advantage for visitors, although the Rays are getting out-homered 40-25.

It’s gonna be a long, hot summer – though at least the Rays will have the climate-controlled environs of Tropicana Field awaiting them in 2026.

23: Extra-base hits for Pete-Crow Armstrong

Crow-Armstrong entered this season with 29 extra-base hits in 439 career plate appearances; he’s nearly equaled that total in 183 PAs this season and trails only Corbin Carroll, Ohtani and Pete Alonso in the NL.

There may be no greater revelation this year than PCA, always considered an elite defender yet with questions surrounding whether his bat has come around. Well, he’s tied with Seiya Suzuki for the Cubs’ lead in home runs with 11, and has gapped a team-leading 11 doubles. It’s very early, but Crow-Armstrong is putting on an MVP-caliber performance.

1.7: Wins Above Replacement produced by Kyle Schwarber

Hey, unless you’re Shohei Ohtani, it’s not easy to rack up WAR as a designated hitter, simply because you must outslug the literal zero that you bring defensively. Yet despite playing just four games in left field, Schwarber leads Philadelphia position players in WAR.

And that only spices up what should be a fascinating free agency for the slugger. He leads the majors with 15 home runs, his .393 OBP is nearly 50 points higher than his career total and his adjusted OPS is a career-best 167.

Schwarber and the Phillies tip-toed around some extension talks this spring, but it’s now increasingly likely he’ll hit the market. He’s already more than halfway to his career-best WAR campaigns (3.5 in both 2021 and ’24). If he keeps it up, the Phillies will have to determine just how much they value his services.

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Leaked audio from former President Joe Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur showed the president struggling with key memories, including when his son Beau died and when he left the vice presidency. 

The audio, obtained by Axios, was a clip from several interviews between the former president and Hur related to an investigation into his handling of classified documents. 

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Cava on Thursday reported better-than-expected sales in its latest fiscal quarter, shaking off the malaise the broader restaurant industry has felt as consumers have cut back on dining.

The Mediterranean chain said its same-store sales grew 10.8% in the three months that ended April 20, lifted by traffic growth of 7.5%. Analysts surveyed by StreetAccount were projecting same-store sales growth of 10.3%.

“When we look at our consumers in the quarter, we saw an increase in premium attachment on higher priced items, like our pita chips or amazing housemade juices. We also saw that our per person average continued to increase, and then when we look at our results, there’s positive traffic across all of our geographies, across all of our income cohorts, as well as the different formats of our restaurants and dayparts,” Chief Financial Officer Tricia Tolivar told CNBC.

She added that diners have been trading up from fast food and down from casual-dining restaurants into Cava’s bowls and pitas, a trend the company has seen for several quarters.

Elsewhere in the restaurant industry, companies have been reporting very different behavior from consumers, although many companies’ results did not include any time in April, when the industry’s sales and traffic performance improved.

Fast-casual rival Chipotle said its transactions fell 2.3% in the first quarter as consumers pulled back their spending in February, spooked by economic uncertainty. Sweetgreen reported its first quarterly same-store sales decline since it went public in 2021. McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said fast-food industry data showed both low- and middle-income consumers spending less. The burger giant said U.S. same-store sales declined 3.6% for the first quarter.

Despite the strong quarterly performance, Cava reiterated its same-store sales forecast, sticking with its projections of a 6% to 8% increase. The chain said last quarter that it is expecting slower growth in the back half of its fiscal 2025.

The stock fell 5% in extended trading. As of Thursday’s close, Cava shares have slid 11% so far this year, hurt by investor concerns over its conservative outlook for the fiscal year and the economic fallout from the Trump administration’s tariffs.

Here’s what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

The company reported fiscal first-quarter net income of $25.71 million, or 22 cents per share, up from $13.99 million, or 12 cents per share, a year earlier. Cava reported an income tax benefit of $10.7 million related to stock-based compensation, which boosted its earnings this quarter.

Net sales climbed 28% to $332 million. On a 12-month trailing basis, Cava’s revenue has surpassed $1 billion, representing a major milestone for the company.

The company did raise some of its projections for the fiscal year.

Cava now anticipates adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $152 million to $159 million, up from its prior forecast of $150 million to $157 million. The company also plans to open between 64 and 68 new locations, higher than its previous outlook of between 62 and 66 restaurant openings.

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Former Major League Baseball player Rafael Furcal was arrested in Broward County, Florida earlier this week due to a confrontation in a grocery store parking lot last month in which he threw rocks at a man he nearly crashed into with his car, according to a police affidavit obtained by USA TODAY Sports on Friday.

The Sunrise, Florida police department affidavit states that a man was driving a work truck to drop off a coworker in the parking lot of a Publix grocery store on April 28 and Furcal nearly collided with them head-on as he drove through the lot. The truck driver told police he avoided a collision by quickly turning right and made a quick U-turn to circle back to finish dropping off his coworker when they passed Furcal’s black Ford pickup truck again.

The affidavit then alleges Furcal stopped, got out of his car and began throwing rocks and a plastic bottle at the other driver. The situation escalated after the truck driver got out of his car, as Furcal allegedly threw a larger rock ‘the size of a small palm,’ according to the affidavit. The truck driver, whose name was redacted, told police he tried to block the rock from hitting his body and that Furcal subsequently recognized he was ‘bleeding profusely’ from his left hand before departing the scene.

The truck driver told police he chased after Furcal and “hit him a couple of times with his fists’ before Furcal left in the Ford pickup. The truck driver said in a May 1 interview with police that he needed five stitches in his left hand, in addition to bruising on the right side of his body and left arm from the rocks.

Police were eventually able to identify Furcal through vehicle registration records tied to a business registered at Furcal’s home address in Weston, Florida. Video surveillance footage of Furcal’s pickup truck in the parking lot and a positive photo lineup identification by the truck driver also helped the police investigation. An arrest warrant was issued for Furcal on Monday.

Furcal played 14 seasons in the majors with the Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins.

He won the National League Rookie of the Year award with Atlanta in 2000 and was on the roster for the Cardinals when they won the World Series in 2011. Furcal was arrested in 2000 and 2004 while playing for the Braves for drunk driving, spending 21 days in jail after the latter for violating his probation.

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The NFL has released its full schedule for the 2025 season. Football fans everywhere will now pore over it, assessing how their favorite teams may do and circling marquee matchups.

It will also allow NFL fans and analysts alike to identify which teams have the most and least favorable schedules.

While the opponents for all 32 NFL teams were known ahead of the schedule release, their order can provide insight into which teams may be able to start or finish hot. It also reveals each team’s bye week, which can be critical in establishing which teams will have rest advantages throughout the season.

Which NFL teams have the most favorable schedules? Here’s a look at the five NFL teams with the easiest slates for the 2025 season.

Easiest NFL schedules 2025

Strength of schedule based on projected win totals for 2025, via Sharp Football Analysis.

1. San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers endured a disappointing 2024 NFL season, but it has set them up for potential success in 2025. San Francisco is playing a fourth-place schedule after finishing last in the NFC West. That set them up with matchups against the Bears, Browns and Giants.

Add in that San Francisco gets to play the NFC South – widely considered one of the league’s worst divisions – as part of the NFL’s yearly rotating schedule and the 49ers should have plenty of winnable games on their docket.

2. New England Patriots

Like the 49ers, the Patriots are benefitting from drawing a last-place schedule. They also play in a weaker division, as neither the Dolphins nor the Jets are projected to have winning records in 2025.

New England also has an easy-looking start to the season. Three of the Patriots’ first four games are at home, and none are against teams with a winning record. They are as follows:

Week 1: vs. Las Vegas Raiders
Week 2: at Miami Dolphins
Week 3: vs. Pittsburgh Steelers
Week 4: vs. Carolina Panthers

The Steelers could provide the Patriots a tough test, especially if Aaron Rodgers signs with the team. Even so, New England should have a chance to get off to a fast start in Drake Maye’s second season.

3. New Orleans Saints

The Saints are facing a difficult rebuild after Derek Carr’s retirement, but at least Kellen Moore’s first season will be against one of the NFL’s weakest schedules.

The Saints finished last in the NFC South last season, which allowed them to draw into matchups with the Bears, Giants and Titans in 2025. The latter two teams are still retooling, so those could be winnable games for New Orleans.

Meanwhile, the Buccaneers have the highest projected win total in the NFC South at 9.5. That should make the Saints’ divisional schedule easier than most, even if New Orleans isn’t well-equipped on paper to contend for the NFC South title.

4. Atlanta Falcons

The Falcons will also benefit from playing in the NFC South. They went 4-2 in the division last season with two wins over the Buccaneers. If Atlanta can improve its results against Carolina and New Orleans, it could end up improving upon its performance last season.

Atlanta also has winnable matchups against the Colts, Patriots and Seahawks. If the Falcons fare well in those games, they should have a good chance to post a winning record for the first time since 2017, the last time the team made the playoffs.

5. Buffalo Bills

The Bills are well-positioned to make a run at the AFC’s No. 1 seed after being the conference’s runner-up last season. Buffalo has a favorable divisional schedule, as none of the Dolphins, Jets or Patriots have projected win totals greater than 8.5, and they also get to beat up on the NFC South.

The Bills have a handful of tougher matchups on the schedule. Games against the Bengals, Chiefs, Eagles and Ravens stand out as difficult battles. The good news is all four of those contests will be home games for Buffalo, so the Bills could be positioned to at least split those four games. If they can do that, Buffalo should have a good chance to post one of the NFL’s best records considering the rest of its schedule.

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If the PGA of America was going to put another PGA Championship at Quail Hollow – a course golf fans see every year on the regular Tour – we should at least be able to expect a leaderboard equal to the Truist Championship. 

Instead, we got a Puerto Rico Open – only without the bathing suits and piña coladas. 

Are we really supposed to believe this is a major? 

No offense to Cam Davis, Ryan Gerard, Ryan Fox, Alex Smalley and Stephan Jaeger – golfers who have four PGA Tour wins among them – but the first day of the PGA Championship did not exactly draft off the excitement of last month’s Masters.

OK, OK, it’s early. And it’s kind of fun to see 47-year-old former world No. 1 Luke Donald pop up to randomly shoot 4-under 67 after doing nothing of note the last few years. 

But really, folks. The only word that can describe the first day of golf’s red-headed stepmajor is … bleak. 

And it’s bleak for a few reasons.

The Scottie Scheffler-Rory McIlroy-Xander Schauffele supergroup was a bust. Scheffler fought to finish at 2-under, but McIlroy was all over the place and shot 74, and last year’s champion, Schauffele, needed 31 putts to shoot 1-over. But none of the other stars really got much cooking either, while Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka and last week’s winner, Sepp Straka, will have a lot of work to do to jump back into contention. 

It was also bleak because the PGA of America, in a complete setup whiff, decided against playing lift, clean and place despite rain pounding the Charlotte area for much of the week. That left the course soaking wet and balls caked with mud, even while the greens were firm and dry thanks to the SubAir System underneath. That combination was not, shall we say, the most pleasing style of golf to watch or play. 

“I understand how a golf purist would (say), ‘Oh, play it as it lies,’ ‘ Scheffler told reporters. “But I don’t think they understand what it’s like literally working your entire life to learn how to hit a golf ball and control it and hit shots and control distance, and all of the sudden due to a rules decision, that (ability) is completely taken away from us by chance.”

That may sound to some of you like a spoiled millionaire athlete whining about Mother Nature, but Scheffler was not wrong.

As he pointed out in a far more expansive answer on the issue, American golf courses are not built like the Open Championship courses in England and Scotland, where there’s a layer of sand between the soil and the turf to help drain moisture and make the fairways more playable in wet conditions, which of course happens all the time. That’s not a practical solution in America because the grass would dry out in the summer heat. 

So the middle ground for most tournaments is allowing players to clean their ball from the fairway and then place it back where it was before hitting the next shot. The PGA chose not to go that route, which meant that players faced a lot of approach shots with muddy balls that reacted far differently than they normally would. 

Don’t think about whether that’s fair. We know golf isn’t necessarily fair to begin with. Think about it more in terms of whether allowing that kind of preventable randomness is good for generating interest in the tournament and the sport. This leaderboard would suggest it is not. 

This particular PGA Championship was always going to struggle from a narrative standpoint because of Quail Hollow. Nothing against the course, which is a fine piece of property where a lot of great players have won – including McIlroy four times. 

But the entire idea behind major championships is to identify the best players by asking questions that they don’t encounter regularly at your run-of-the-mill PGA Tour stop. That’s hard to do on a course they see every year – the exception, of course, being Augusta National.

The only way to really combat that is to have a tournament where the biggest stars are duking it out on Sunday, which has kind of been the PGA Championship’s brand to the extent it has one. 

Maybe things will normalize by Sunday and we’ll eventually get there as the Ryan Gerards and Ryan Foxes of the world fade away. But that’s definitely not how the tournament looks after Round 1. 

The PGA, through no fault of its own, has long had the misfortune of being No. 4 among golf’s four majors. It doesn’t have the tradition or allure of the Masters, the torturous identity of the U.S. Open or the links golf novelty of the Open Championship. 

All it can do is put on the most exciting tournament possible. But after a round like Thursday, it’ll never beat the allegations. 

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