Highlights of The Open- On & Off the Course

This past weekend June 16-20th was the British Open, or as Britain likes to call it, The Open. This tournament is golf’s oldest tournament, being around for over 150 years. The Open was founded by pioneering golfers who had one guiding principle – to crown the Champion Golfer of the Year.

Photo: Zach Johnson Twitter

BLAH, BLAH, YADA YADA- Let’s get to the good stuff!

This year, the winner was Zach Johnson (from the United States, whoop whoop ‘MERICUH!).

No, not the Johnson dating ultra babe Paulina Gretzky, but still an American no doubt! God bless America.

It was an unfortunate loss for Jordon Spieth who has already won four times this year, including a pair of playoffs.

 

And if you saw that bomb of a putt Spieth made on sixteen…

Like, damn. Heartbreaker.

Moving on…

There is absolutely no way to talk about The Open without at least touching on defending champion Bubba Watson’s watch game this past weekend.

Photo: USA Today

I am literally talking about the watch you wear on your wrist game.

The 2012 Masters champion has a casual half-million sitting on his wrist, thanks to a pretty sweet deal with Swiss luxury watchmaker, Richard Mille. This watch is the same type of $525,000 watch he wore en route to the green jacket last April.

Sorry but for a half mil, weren’t you expecting it to look way more blingy or something? Maybe that’s just me…

Speaking of some serious cash, there were a lot of bets placed this past weekend. The most outrageous bet made was three million.

THREE. MILLION. DOLLARS.

At the end of the day, to me, golf is just golf.

I love a good athlete, I do. And I’d love to learn how to play golf, but the likelihood of that happening is little to none (it’s an attention span thing… Is it football season yet?).

Thus, I’ll stick to drinking in the club house while my man kicks ass on the course.

 

Cheers to that!

– Alexa

 

A-Rod: Breaking Records but Not Bank?

When people think of Alex Rodriguez, some words that might come to mind include (but not limited to): liar, cheater, chump, choke artist and some other words that are certainly not appropriate. In short, they see baseball’s biggest monster, who happens to play for baseball’s Evil Empire. Long gone are the days that we looked at A-Rod as the young prospect from Miami ready to break some serious records in the big leagues. However, if any attention has been paid to the Yankees since the return of Mr. Rodriguez, he is doing exactly that: breaking records.

Since Rodriguez has returned to the league after a long investigation and a year suspension, he has been a non-stop train to a successful year in baseball. According to Baseball Reference, his OPB since becoming DH is one of the best in the league standing at .358 with 137 at bats and a batting an average of .255. Facing the Yankees’ biggest and oldest rival, the Boston Red Sox in Fenway, Rodriguez hit the 661^st home run of his career, moving him ahead of Hall of Famer, Willie Mays. Now with A-Rod on his next quest to surpass another Yankee legend, Lou Gehrig, in RBI numbers (1,993), people must begin to think, how much bank is Rodriguez making right now due to his record breaking performance of a year so far, and the answer is none really.

In 2007, Rodriguez signed a 10-year, $275 million contract that contained a marketing agreement. The agreement is separate from his player contract stating that the Yankees had the right to designate a “milestone” valued at $6 million for each occurrence. Unfortunately for the 39 year old, he has reaped none of his rewards. According to MLB.com, New York Yankees general manager, Brian Cashman, has made it very clear that the Yankees do not plan on paying Rodriguez for his “milestones” due to their obligation not to. The organization has been reluctant to pay A-Rod due to their inability to truly profit off his “milestone” achievements. Cashman said in a presser with the MLB back in early May, “We have the right but not the obligation, in quotes, and it’s as simple as that…if we choose to pursue something, we’ll choose to pursue it. If we choose not to, it’s our right not to. In both cases, we’re honoring the contract.”

The truth is, everyone seems to be loving A-Rod all over again. The #FORG1V3 t-shirts have been selling like churros at DisneyLand and fans can be seen wearing them throughout Yankee Stadium. It sounds like Rodriguez is regaining his reputation and should probably take a key from Rihanna and ask for what’s owed to him.

– Nicolette