PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – It’s been a long Florida fortnight for a man of a certain age.
At 47 years old and trending, Lee Westwood couldn’t hide the fatigue that back-to-back weeks in contention on the PGA Tour can produce.
“Everybody keeps telling me how old I am,” he smiled following a long day battling a group of twenty-somethings.
He didn’t win The Players Championship. That honor went to 27-year-old Justin Thomas. But the clever Englishman did manage to post his second consecutive runner-up finish in as many weeks and drastically change his narrative for the next few months.
Westwood started the year on the radar of European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington – not as a player, but as a vice captain. But after the last two weeks, Harrington is likely starting to look at potential pairings for the veteran of 10 matches representing Team Europe.
You could call this a second act for Westwood, but it’s more like his third, or maybe even his fourth, depending on who is counting.
He climbed to fifth in the world as a young man in the late 1990s, only to plummet outside the top 200 by 2003. A year later he’d regained his form, and he’s spent the better part of the last two decades inside the top 50, including a 22-week run as the game’s top-ranked player in 2010-11.
How Westwood raised game to next level at Players
But these were supposed to be his golden years. He served as a Ryder Cup vice captain in 2018 in Paris and began this season a full decade removed from his last PGA Tour victory, although there has been sustained success on the European Tour, including last year’s weighty victory in Abu Dhabi.
Few outside of Team Westy would have predicted this run of form, but it’s not difficult to explain the last two weeks. It was there etched across his admittedly weathered face on the week’s final hole, where he’d just rolled in a 15-footer for birdie and embraced his fiancée and caddie, Helen Storey.
Storey’s impact as a sounding board/sports psychologist/life coach is evident to all. Even DeChambeau, whose specialty is normally math and critical thinking, knows a confidant when he sees one.
“I think Helen is a big part of it,” DeChambeau said when asked what impressed him most about Westwood’s game. “She’s keeping him steady and levelheaded, and she’s a rock. Keeps his mind focused on the right things, and she’s been awesome for him, and that’s one of his secret weapons.”
Even with his secret weapon by his side, Westwood came up just short for the second consecutive Sunday. His closing 72 at TPC Sawgrass left him alone in second place and a stroke behind Thomas. Last week at Bay Hill it was DeChambeau, another 27-year-old, who clipped him.
Lee Westwood said he is taking his son, Sam, to Augusta National for a little fun and some prep work.
With age comes perspective.
“I’m 48 in a month’s time, and I’m still out here contending for tournaments and playing in final groups with great players like Bryson DeChambeau and Justin Thomas and people like that,” Westwood said. “It’s just a joy to be involved and still playing well and being able to contend.”
With age also comes a good amount of subtext. This was more than just another solid week at the Tour’s flagship event for Westwood. His play puts a bow on his complicated relationship with The Players. In 2011, the then-world No. 1 made headlines when he very publicly skipped the championship. It was a protest move born from a Tour rule that limited non-members to 10 starts.
Westwood has since become a staple at The Players with a ball-striking game that’s a perfect fit for TPC Position Golf.
The anatomy of this particular near-miss rests with, of all things, two layups that cost Westwood his third Tour title. His second shot from the trees at the par-5 second hole clipped a branch and found the water, leading to a disappointing bogey. On the 16th hole, Westwood wasn’t much better with a second shot that found a fairway bunker and a scrambling par when he desperately needed a birdie to keep pace with Thomas.
“I probably had my ‘C’ game today, and grinding it out,” admitted Westwood, who played the crucial final three holes on Sunday in even par.
There is a predictable ebb and flow to life on Sundays at Tour events. Thomas was filled with joy following his victory. DeChambeau was predictably, and understandably, dour following a scrappy closing round that left him tied for third place. And then there was Westwood, who is cut from a different cloth, one of great maturity and perspective, which explains why when the Tour restarted last June, Westwood remained in the U.K. for months and skipped the PGA Championship.
Do you enjoy the game, Lee?
“I do enjoy the game more. I take it for what it is: a game,” he shrugged. “We’re just trying to get a little white ball into a little white hole. It gets treated far too seriously occasionally. With what’s going on in the world, it’s fun to be doing a job that I love and that I’ve done for 28 years, and I’m still doing it.
“You’ve got to have realities in your life, and my life is full of reality, yeah.”
The grey in Westwood’s beard gives his age away, but it’s the knowing smile that offers a glimpse into how 47 years can shape one’s perspective.
Another runner-up finish.
Another chance to feel the rush of a Sunday in contention.
TORONTO – The Toronto Maple Leafs have announced cookie brand Oreo as the team’s helmet sponsor for the upcoming NHL season.
The new helmet will debut Sunday when Toronto opens its 2024-25 pre-season against the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Arena.
The Oreo logo replaces Canadian restaurant chain Pizza Pizza, which was the Leafs’ helmet sponsor last season.
Previously, social media platform TikTok sponsored Toronto starting in the 2021-22 regular season when the league began allowing teams to sell advertising space on helmets.
The Oreo cookie consists of two chocolate biscuits around a white icing filling and is often dipped in milk.
Fittingly, the Leafs wear the Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s “Milk” logo on their jerseys.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
MacKenzie Weegar wasn’t bitter or upset as he watched friends live out their dreams.
The Calgary Flames defenceman just hopes to experience the same feeling one day. He also knows the road leading to that moment, if it does arrive, will likely be long and winding — much like his own path.
A seventh-round pick by the Florida Panthers at the 2013 NHL draft, Weegar climbed the ranks to become an important piece of a roster that captured the Presidents’ Trophy as the league’s top regular-season club in 2021-22.
Two months later following a second-round playoff exit, he was traded to the Flames along with Jonathan Huberdeau for Matthew Tkachuk. And less than two years after that, the Panthers were hoisting the Stanley Cup.
“Happy for the city and for the team,” Weegar said of Florida’s June victory over the Edmonton Oilers. “There was no bad taste in my mouth.”
His sole focus, he insists, is squarely on eventually getting the Flames to the same spot. The landscape, however, has changed drastically since Weegar committed to Calgary on an eight-year, US$50-million contract extension in October 2022.
Weegar has watched a list that includes goaltender Jacob Markstrom, defencemen Chris Tanev, Noah Hanifin and Nikita Zadorov and forwards Elias Lindholm and Andrew Mangiapane shipped out of town since the start of last season — largely for picks, prospects and young players as part of a rebuild.
Despite that exodus, he remains committed to the Calgary project steered by general manager Craig Conroy.
“It’s easy to get out of all whack when you see guys trying to leave or wanting new contracts,” the 30-year-old from Ottawa said at last week’s NHL/NHLPA player media tour in Las Vegas. “I just focus on where I am and where I want to be, and that’s Calgary.
“I believe in this team. The city has taken me in right away. I feel like I owe it to them to stick around and grind through these years and get a Stanley Cup.”
The hard-nosed blueliner certainly knows what it is to grind.
After winning the Memorial Cup alongside Nathan MacKinnon with the Halifax Mooseheads in 2013, Weegar toiled in the ECHL and American Hockey League for three seasons before making his NHL debut late in the 2016-17 campaign with the Panthers.
He would spend the next five years in South Florida as one of the players tasked with shifting an organizational culture that had experienced little success over the previous two decades.
“There’s always going to be a piece of my heart and loyalty to that team,” Weegar said. “But now I’m in a different situation … I compete against all 32 teams, not just Florida. There’s always a chip on my shoulder every single year.”
Weegar set career highs with 20 goals — eight was the most he had ever previously registered — and 52 points in 2023-24 as part of a breakout offensive performance.
“I think my buddies cared a lot more than I did,” he said with a smile. “All I hear is, ‘fantasy, fantasy, fantasy.'”
Weegar was actually more proud of his 200 blocked shots and 194 hits as he looks to help set a new Flames’ standard alongside Huberdeau, captain Mikael Backlund, Nazem Kadri, Blake Coleman and Rasmus Andersson for a franchise expected to have its new arena in time for the 2027-28 season.
“You have to build that culture and that belief in the locker room,” said Weegar, who pointed to 22-year-old centre Connor Zary as a player set to pop. “Those young guys are going to have to come into their own and be consistent every night … they’re the next generation.”
Weegar, however, isn’t punting on 2024-25. He pointed to the NHL’s parity and the fact a couple of teams surprise every season.
It’s the same approach that took him from the ECHL a decade ago to hockey’s premier pre-season event inside a swanky hotel on Sin City’s famed strip, where he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the game’s best.
“From the outside — media and even friends and family — the expectations are probably a bit lower,” Weegar said of Calgary’s outlook. “But there’s no reason to think that we can’t make playoffs and we can’t be a good team (with) that underdog mentality.
“You never know.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept 17, 2024.
Jose Maria Celestino da Costa was named vice-president and head of soccer operations while Marianne Brooks was appointed vice-president of partnerships, Kelly Shouldice as vice-president of brand and content and Joyce Sou as vice-president of finance and business operations.
The new six-team women’s pro league is set to kick off in April.
“Their unique expertise and leadership are crucial as we lay the foundation for not just a successful league in Canada, but one that stands among the top sports leagues in the world,” NSL president Christina Litz said in a statement. “By investing in top-tier talent and infrastructure, the Northern Super League is committed to creating a league that will elevate the game and set new standards for women’s professional soccer globally.”
Da Costa will oversee all on-field matters, including officiating. His resume includes stints with Estoril Praia, a men’s first-division team in Portugal, and the Portuguese Soccer Federation, where he helped develop the Portuguese women’s league.
Brooks spent a decade with Canucks Sports & Entertainment, working in “partnership sales and retention efforts” for the Vancouver Canucks, Vancouver Warriors, and Rogers Arena. Most recently, she served as senior director of account management at StellarAlgo, a software company that helps pro sports teams connect with their fans
Shouldice has worked for Corus Entertainment, the Canadian Football League, and most recently as vice-president of Content and Communications at True North Sports & Entertainment, where she managed original content as well as business and hockey communications.
Sou, who was involved in the league’s initial launch, will oversee financial planning, analysis and the league’s expansion strategy in her new role.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
