Walt Disney Co., locked in an escalating political feud with Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has scrapped plans on a nearly $900 million investment in a new corporate campus in Florida that would have relocated more than 2,000 employees.
“This was not an easy decision to make, but I believe it is the right one,” Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney’s parks, experiences and products division, told employees Thursday in a memo viewed by MarketWatch.
“While some were excited about the new campus, I know that this decision and the circumstances surrounding it have been difficult for others,”D’Amaro wrote. “Given the considerable changes that have occurred since the announcement of this project, including new leadership and changing business conditions, we have decided not to move forward.”
Citing “changing business conditions,” D’Amaro said the project is dead, and employees will no longer be asked to relocate from Southern California. Many Disney DIS, +0.84%
employees balked at the company’s relocation plans when they were first announced by former Chief Executive Bob Chapek in July 2021. Chapek was fired by the board in November.
D’Amaro said employees who already moved to Florida may be able to relocate back to California. Disney World is Florida’s largest employer, with approximately 75,000 workers.
The reversal in Disney’s plans to develop in the town of Lake Nona, outside of Orlando, is the latest dispute between the media giant and DeSantis, who last year criticized Disney for publicly opposing a sex-education bill that he had championed. The rise in tensions has led to a spate of lawsuits and increasingly bitter war of words between the two sides.
When Andrew Pessano was looking to create a state-of-the-art indoor pickleball facility in southern New Jersey and take advantage of the surging interest in the sport, he considered building it from scratch. But he and his partners realized it would take at least two years and likely cost well over $1 million.
So, Pessano and his team found a different way to achieve their goal: They leased a vacant big-box space — formerly home to a Burlington BURL, +0.44%
store, in fact — and turned it into Proshot Pickleball, a membership facility replete with eight cushioned courts, viewing decks, a pro shop and a players lounge.
Pessano says that since opening in mid-February, he’s already signed up more than 300 paid members. “The first couple of months we’re busy, busy,” he adds.
Proshot Pickleball could be something of a model for the future of what is often described as the fastest-growing sport in the country; a game that shares elements with tennis, ping-pong and badminton. In short, pickleball could soon be coming to that vacant space in your local mall — or to that abandoned big-box store. (Consider all those soon-to-be-empty Bed Bath & Beyond locations.)
“Pickleball ‘will help America’s malls to become the social hub they once were.’”
The trend is already happening: A recent retail-outlook report from JLL, a company that tracks the commercial real-estate market, points to pickleball facilities in locations ranging from a former Saks Off Fifth store in Connecticut, to a shuttered Belk department-store location in Georgia.
Pickleball “court owners are targeting malls for expansion,” says the report.
Of course, no one is saying that pickleball won’t continue to be played in parks and other public spaces, or even people’s driveways. Inherent in the game’s appeal, say fans, is that it can be played just about anywhere. But there are notable factors driving the move into malls and other retail locations.
Begin with that surging interest in pickleball. Nearly 9 million Americans are now playing the game, the Sports & Fitness Industry Association reports — an astounding year-over-year increase of 85.7%.
All those players need places to play, but the lack of available public court space in many cities and towns has led to all sorts of skirmishes, with issues arising when players use tennis facilities or take up space in playgrounds. As one parent complained about the pickleballers when the turf war erupted at a New York City playground: “It’s not a coexistence, it’s a complete and utter takeover.”
That leaves more room for operators of private facilities, like the pickleball court owners that JLL cites, to enter the picture — and many concepts, even chains, are starting to emerge to address the demand. But where should they go? Again, building from scratch can take a lot of money, and time.
“Nearly 9 million million Americans are now playing pickleball, the Sports & Fitness Industry Association reports — an astounding year-over-year increase of 85.7%.”
Meanwhile, mall operators and landlords of other retail spaces, such as big-box stores, are continually looking for new concepts to bring into their spaces, especially as brick-and-mortar retail stores fight to stay relevant and afloat at a time when online shopping has become the norm for many Americans.
In turn, those concepts are more often about “experiences” rather than shopping, says James Cook, a research director at JLL. Think museums, golf simulators and pickleball.
It’s about redefining the retail landscape, Cook says. “The idea is this is something new and unique,” he adds of these emerging types of mall/big-box tenants, including pickleball facilities.
Mike Leigh, author of “Zen and the Art of Pickleball,” sees an especial logic to pickleball in malls. These retails spaces are all about bringing people together, something that is all too easily forgotten in a point-and-click world of online shopping. And pickleball is a game that’s inherently social because of its close-up nature.
So the two make a natural combo, Leigh says: Pickleball “will help America’s malls to become the social hub they once were.”
CityPickle, a New York City-based operator of pickleball facilities, opened a pop-up venue at the Hudson Yards development last year.
CityPickle
Still, there are plenty of arguments to the contrary, so this is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
America’s malls and other retail hubs have their share of empty spaces, but the situation may not be as dire as it seems, Cook says. The points to the current retail vacancy rate of 4.2% being “at historic lows,” noting that there’s been considerable recovery since the darkest days of the pandemic.
Moreover, he says, higher-end malls are doing especially well — and it’s those spaces that tend to be a good fit for experiential concepts like pickleball. In other words, these malls may like the idea, but they aren’t necessarily begging for tenants.
Plus, Cook says pickleball facilities can need lots of space — concepts often have a food-and-drink component for pre- and post-game socializing. And facility operators like to have outdoor space, if possible, for the warmer months. Such requirements can pose challenges in a traditional mall setup, he says.
“I think [pickleball] only works in some specific instances,” he says.
Pessano, of South Jersey’s Proshot Pickleball, points to another issue: If the space’s support columns aren’t situated far enough apart from one another, it will make it difficult to have enough courts to make for a viable business. And the ceiling height can’t be too low, either, he adds.
These discouraging realities notwithstanding, it appears pickleball operators will continue to consider abandoned mall spaces and big-box stores as a good option to create much-needed court space. Take CityPickle, a private operator that already set up a pop-up facility in New York City’s Hudson Yards mixed-use development in the past year, and is looking to establish permanent court spaces in the Big Apple and elsewhere.
CityPickle founders Mary Cannon and Erica Desai say they are considering abandoned retail locations as possibilities. They like the open space these places provide, and they say that landlords appreciate having tenants that bring the kind of buzz and energy that a pickleball facility offers.
Fanatics Inc. will buy the U.S. operations of Australia’s PointsBet for about $150 million, in the company’s largest foray yet into sports betting.
PointsBet PBH, -18.70%
announced the deal Sunday night, specifying that the acquisition only applies to PointsBet’s U.S. assets, not its businesses in Australia and Canada. CNBC first reported the deal. Fanatics did not immediately reply to MarketWatch’s request for comment Sunday night.
PointsBet is an online sportsbook that launched in the U.S. in 2019, and operates in 15 states, including New Jersey, Iowa, Illinois and Colorado.
“Despite the strategic success building a valuable asset in the U.S., the costs of operating in a state-by-state environment, together with the requirement to build significant scale to compete against well capitalized operators, led us to explore a number of options,” PointsBet Chief Executive Sam Swanell said in a statement. “The sale of the U.S. Business to Fanatics Betting and Gaming delivers the most attractive risk-adjusted value outcome for shareholders compared to the risks and benefits of other options including the status quo.”
PointsBet shareholders are expected to vote on the sale at their annual meeting in late June.
The deal should increase pressure on U.S. sports-gambling companies such as DraftKings Inc. DKNG, -1.96%
and FanDuel. In late April, Fanatics launched sportsbook wagering for its customers in Ohio and Tennessee, and the Wall Street Journal reported at the time that the company pans to invest about $1 billion in its new sports-betting division.
In an interview, Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin told the Journal he wants Fanatics to be the world’s top sports-betting company within the next 10 years, and expects its betting operations to be profitable by 2025 or 2026.
In December, Florida-based Fanatics — which got its start in sports apparel and collectibles — closed a $700 million funding round, valuing it at about $31 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. The privately held company is expected to eventually launch an IPO.
Walt Disney Co. shares declined in after-hours trading Wednesday following an earnings report that showed Disney+ subscribers declining in recent months, as executives seek to cut losses in the streaming business.
Disney DIS reported fiscal second-quarter net earnings of $1.27 billion, or 69 cents a share. After adjusting for restructuring costs and other effects, Disney reported earnings of 93 cents a share, down from $1.08 a share a year ago. Revenue grew to $21.82 billion from $20.27 billion a year ago.
Nights booked on Airbnb Inc. hit a record high in the first quarter as more guests traveled overseas and returned to cities, leading to the company’s first profitable start to the year on record, executives announced Tuesday.
But executives’ forecast was less bullish, even though they expect a strong summer travel season and second-quarter revenue growth. They cautioned that growth in nights and experiences booked will be “unfavorable” compared with the year-ago quarter, when there was a surge in travel demand as fears about…
Mullen Automotive Inc. is attracting more meme-like attention from retail investors than traditional meme stock darlings AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and GameStop Corp., according to an influential meme-stock trader.
The electric vehicle company’s stock has become the “meme go to” for retail investors, said the trader, who goes by the name Obi. The trader participates in the WallStreetBets group on Reddit under the user name Major-Access2321.
Obi, whose Making Easy Money YouTube channel has over 28,000 subscribers, said that Mullen MULN, -7.98%
is generating plenty of buzz across social media. “When it comes to meme stock world on Reddit, Twitter and now even Facebook, groups are popping up calling themselves the ‘MULN army’,” he told MarketWatch.
The trader said that “less and less” people are speaking about AMC Entertainment AMC, +3.14%
and GameStop GME, +2.38%.
“More and more people are speaking about MULN … they call it the meme that makes sense,” he added.
Mullen shares have seen a dramatic spike in trading volume recently, with average trading volume of 1.1 billion shares Wednesday and 547.8 million shares over the past five days, according to FactSet data. The stock’s 65-day average trading volume is 279 million shares. Mullen ended Wednesday’s session down 21.1% on the company’s announcement of a reverse stock split.
AMC’s stock ended Wednesday’s session up 4.4% on trading volume of 25.1 million shares, below its 65-day average trading volume of 35.4 million shares. GameStop’s stock closed up 1.7% Wednesday on trading volume of 3.2 million shares, below its 65-day average of 4.8 million shares.
The stock was down 18% on Thursday.
The over outlook for the EV market looks bright, according to Obi. “Retail feel like they have something special here with MULN,” he added.
On Wednesday Mullen Automotive Inc. announced that it will conduct the 1-for-25 reverse stock split as the electric-vehicle company looks to maintain its Nasdaq listing.
The stock will continue to trade on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the existing symbol “MULN” and will begin trading on a split-adjusted basis at market open Thursday.
In March, Mullen announced that the Nasdaq had approved the company’s request for a 180-day extension to meet the $1 minimum-bid-price requirement. On Sept. 7, 2022, the Nasdaq notified the company that its stock was not compliant with rules as it had traded below $1 for more than 30 days.
Mullen’s stock soared last year after Amazon.com Inc.’s AMZN, +0.34%
delivery partner placed an order for up to 600 cargo vans, and the company has since teamed up with Rapid Response Defense Systems to supply vans for federal government business.
In December, Mullen announced that it is partnering with Loop Global Inc. to build public and private EV-charging technology, infrastructure and network solutions. Earlier this year, Mullen joined forces with Qiantu Motors to launch what they called an EV supercar.
As some U.S. hotels hung on to practices they adopted during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic — such as eliminating daily room cleanings — the number of hotel housekeepers fell by more than 102,000 last year from prepandemic levels, new data show.
The total number of hotel housekeeping jobs as of May 2022 was 364,990, a 22% decline from the total of 467,270 such positions during the same period in 2019, according to numbers released last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Hollywood writers are on strike for the first time in 15 years, halting production of TV shows and movies.
The Writers Guild of America announced Monday night its boards unanimously approved a strike effective 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. “Picketing will begin tomorrow afternoon,” the WGA said in a tweet Monday night.
A lawsuit filed in Delaware in April against the travel site Tripadvisor and its majority shareholder is highlighting what may be a growing trend: companies seeking to shift their incorporations to Nevada to avoid Delaware’s more stringent and entrenched legal standards.
The suit was filed on behalf of a group of Tripadvisor Inc. TRIP shareholders, who are hoping to persuade the Delaware Chancery Court to stop the company from pushing ahead with board-approved plans to reincorporate in Nevada, arguing their motive is to take…
The sport, often described as a cross between tennis and ping pong, has exploded in popularity over the past few years. Nearly 9 million Americans are now playing the game, the Sports & Fitness Industry Association reports — a year-over-year increase of 85.7%. Many towns across the U.S. are allocating federal COVID-19 aid to build pickleball courts. And the Wichita City Council recently voted to spend over $6 million on a pickleball complex.
A U.K. regulator made the surprising decision Wednesday to block Microsoft Corp.’s deal for Activision Blizzard Inc. in a further sign of resistance to the power of Big Tech.
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority announced Wednesday that it would prohibit the $69 billion deal as the merger could hurt competition in the nascent market for cloud gaming. The decision comes after the agency said in late March that it no longer thought the deal would threaten console gaming, which is a vastly larger and more established…
The chief executive of the high-end office-furniture company MillerKnoll has gone viral. And probably not in a manner she would prefer.
In a leaked Zoom call of a MillerKnoll staff town hall last month, CEO Andi Owen addressed concerns from employees about the company’s decision to withhold bonuses. It quickly descended into her lambasting staff for complaining about the move.
“Questions came through about, ‘How can we stay motivated if we’re not going to get a bonus?‘ ” she says in the meeting recording. Owen — tapped in 2021 by Fast Company as one of the most creative people in business and celebrated that same year in the New York Times for her navigation of the coronavirus pandemic and swing-state sociopolitics — tells employees of the Zeeland, Mich., company to focus on things the company can control, such as customer service.
“Don’t ask about: What are we going to do if we don’t get a bonus?” she says, growing animated, even, apparently, agitated. “Get the damn $26 million. Spend your time and your effort thinking about the $26 million we need and not thinking about what you’re going to do if you don’t get a bonus. All right? Can I get some commitment for that? I would appreciate that.”
Though she didn’t specifically identify the significance of the $26 million figure, the company’s operating expenses rose by exactly that amount in its third quarter due to “voluntary and involuntary reductions in the company’s workforce and charges for the impairment of assets associated with the decision to cease operating fully as a stand-alone brand.”
MillerKnoll’s third-quarterly filing showed that the furniture maker — the product of a 2021 merger of the Herman Miller and Knoll brands, behind products such as the Eames lounge chair and the Saarinen Tulip table, respectively — expects lower sales in the fourth quarter after posting a decline in orders and sales margins in the three months ending March 4.
Owen recalls in the video that a past employer told her, “You can visit Pity City, but you can’t live there.”
“So, people, leave Pity City,” she continues, exclaiming: “Let’s get it done.”
“You have to be a psychopath to say this stuff to your employees when you are taking a massive bonus. Does she think they won’t find out?” asked one Twitter user.
“Plenty going on here but one of many things that leapt out to me was that mere moments after she went with the ‘be kind to people’ bit, she was yelling at workers,” another said.
The company said that the widely shared video clip had been taken out of context.
“Andi fiercely believes in this team and all we can accomplish together, and will not be dissuaded by a 90-second clip taken out of context and posted on social media,” a spokesman said in a statement.
Owen made $5 million last year. The company has yet to say how much she will make this year. The company this year has expensed $15.7 million in stock-based compensation.
MillerKnoll shares MLKN, -2.38%
have dropped 12% in 2023, compared with the 8% gain for the benchmark S&P 500 SPX, +0.02%.
Other MillerKnoll brands include Design Within Reach, acquired by Herman Miller a decade ago and recognized as having made the iconic midcentury designs of Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi, George Nelson, and others available to a wider, if affluent, audience without engaging an interior designer; the Danish design brand Hay; and Holly Hunt.
During a period of high interest rates, it might be more difficult to impress investors with dividend stocks. But the stocks can have an important advantage over the long term. The dividend payouts can increase over the years, helping to push share prices higher over time.
When considering stocks for dividend income, yield shouldn’t be the only thing you consider. If a stock’s price has tumbled because investors are worried about the company’s business prospects, the dividend yield might be very high. A double-digit yield might mean investors expect to see a cut to the dividend soon.
There are many ways to look at companies’ expected ability to maintain or raise their dividend payouts. But one can also take a simple approach to begin researching stock choices.
For investors who would rather aim for long-term growth to go along with dividend income, or take a relatively conservative approach to growth while reinvesting dividends, a screen of stocks in the S&P 500 SPX, +0.33%
produces only 10 stocks with dividend yields of 4.5% or higher with majority “buy” or equivalent ratings among analysts polled by FactSet. Here they are, sorted by dividend yield:
Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.
The dividend yields for this group of 10 companies are based on current annual regular payout rates, with all paying quarterly except for Realty Income Corp. O, +1.30%,
which pays monthly.
These two oil and natural gas producers would have passed the above screen based on their most recent dividend payments and analysts’ sentiment, however, they pay a combined fixed-plus-variable dividend every quarter, with the fixed portion relatively low:
Shares of Pioneer Natural Resources Co. PXD, -0.77%
closed at $230 on April 14. Among analysts polled by FactSet, 59% rate the stock a “buy” or the equivalent, and the consensus price target is $257.42. The company pays a fixed quarterly dividend of $1.10 a share, which would make for a dividend yield of only 1.91%. However, the most recent variable quarterly dividend was $4.48 a share, for a combined quarterly dividend of $5.58, which would translate to an annualized dividend yield of 9.70%. The consensus estimate for dividends in 2025 is $4.63 — the analysts are only estimating the fixed portion of the dividend. Pioneer has held preliminary merger discussions with Exxon Corp. XOM, -1.16%,
according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Devon Energy Corp.’s DVN, -0.72%
stock closed at $55.70 on April 14. The shares are rated “buy” or the equivalent by 55% of analysts and the consensus price target is $67.66. The fixed portion of Devon’s quarterly dividend is 20 cents a share, for an annualized dividend yield of 1.44%. The variable portion of the most recent quarterly dividend was 69 cents a share. The total payout of 89 cents would make for an annual dividend yield of 6.39%. Analysts expect the fixed portion of annual dividends to total $3.61 in 2025, according to FactSet.
I’ve reviewed a lot of board game adaptations of video games on this website, and with good reason: it’s the most intimate intersection of our board game and video game coverage. In nearly every case, the key consideration has been how does the board game feel compared to the original. What kind of concessions have been made, how does it differ, does it match the video game in terms of vibes, if not exact mechanics.
Frostpunk is different. It’s a hulking huge board game that seeks, in almost every meaningful way, not to adapt the video game to the tabletop, but to bring it wholesale, warts and all. It’s an ambitious undertaking if nothing else, but I’m also not quite sure if it’s worth all the effort.
And it is an effort. When I went to play the game for the first time I was at least 30 minutes into setting it up when I started to get the sweats. I had spent half an hour painstakingly punching cards, reading the manual and placing tokens on the table and it looked like I’d barely begun. Was I doing something wrong? Was I just a very slow guy? After reading this Dicebreaker story called “I spent an hour failing to set up a board game and it made me question everything” it turns out no, thankfully I’m fine, it’s the game that’s slow.
Photo: Luke Plunkett | Kotaku
Frostpunk is one of the most complex board games I have ever played, let alone set up (and that’s not just me talking, it has a 4.32/5 “weight” rating on BoardGameGeek, which is very high). There are a seemingly endless array of tokens, multiple decks of cards that look the same but aren’t and loads of different rules that bend and sway for each player. Most maddeningly, there are eight boards you have to keep track of.
Eight. Boards. That’s too many boards.
If you’re wondering why the board game version of a (relatively) straightforward city-builder needs to be so complicated, it’s because this edition of the game, for whatever reason, didn’t want to vaguely recreate the spirit of playing Frostpunk. It wants to recreate the whole damn thing, substituting tabletop components for mouse clicks. Nearly everything you can do in the video game, from the politics to the resource gathering to the quest expeditions to city-building is here, and it works much the same way it does on PC.
It is, in many ways, a staggering achievement. Once you (eventually) get on top of the game’s vast array of components, boards and rules it really does feel like you’re playing Frostpunk, the pressures and nagging responsibilities of the digital wasteland transplanted perfectly to the physical world. Indeed some of those pressures are even better here, because Frostpunk is a co-op game, meaning there can be 2-4 of you (there’s also a singleplayer mode, but I didn’t play that) taking on different jobs within the city, working together while at the same time arguing over every decision. If you thought the social and political stuff was cool in the video game, it’s great here since you’re essentially acting out a lot of those debates in the flesh.
Yet in other ways it all feels a bit pointless? The board game cuts so close to the video game’s cloth that at times you wonder why you’re bothering at all, since the video game does all this for you, without the arduous setup time or constant consultation with the rules. Sure, that’s a more solitary experience, but there’s a point where that trade-off can be worth it, and for many people—myself included—that point can come when you’re hours into a single game and find you’re not even close to finishing it.
Photo: Luke Plunkett | Kotaku
At least some of that setup is worth it. The game ships with an enormous plastic recreation of The Generator, which doesn’t just look amazing on the middle of the table but has actual gameplay use as well, since players need to drop coal into it almost every turn as they play, an act that rivals Deep Rock Galactic’s robot mining as one of the most satisfying physical actions in recent board game history.
And, in a very rare occurrence for these reviews, I want to give a shout out to the game’s documentation. For whatever reason most board game rulebooks in 2023 still suck, but Frostpunk, despite the game’s complexity and scale, never let us down.
There’s a very specific type of person out there for this game. Someone who is into Frostpunk but gets lonely playing it, or someone who has never played the video game but is intrigued by the density and politics on offer here. Sadly I was neither of those people, I found its setup time and length just too much, but like I’ve said I can at least appreciate the exhaustive design effort that went into the approach taken here, if nothing else.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Jon Rahm turned the longest day into his sweetest victory, starting Sunday with a four-shot deficit in the morning chill and finishing in fading sunlight as the fourth Spaniard to become a Masters champion.
Rahm closed with a 3-under 69 to pull away from mistake-prone Brooks Koepka. He won by four shots over Koepka and 52-year-old Phil Mickelson, who matched the low score of the tournament with a 65. He is the oldest runner-up in Masters history.
It was Mickelson who declared Rahm would be among golf’s biggest stars even before the Spaniard turned pro in 2016. Rahm now has a green jacket to go along with his U.S. Open title he won in 2021 at Torrey Pines.
“It was obvious to me at a very young age that he was one of the best players in the world even while he was in college,” Mickelson said. “To see him on this stage is not surprising for anybody.”
Rahm made up two shots on Koepka over the final 12 holes of the rain-delayed third round and started the final round two shots behind. He seized on Koepka’s collapse and then surged so far ahead that Mickelson’s amazing closing round — the best final round ever at Augusta National for the three-time Masters champion — was never going to be enough.
Nothing was more satisfying than an uphill climb to the 18th green to claim the green jacket on a day when Spanish stars aligned. Sunday is the birthdate of his idol, the late Seve Ballesteros, and this is the 40-year anniversary of Ballesteros winning his second Masters title.
Rahm embraced his wife and two children, and as he walked toward the scoring room, there was two-time Masters champion José María Olazábal in his green jacket for the strongest hug of all and a few words that included Ballesteros.
“He said he hopes it’s the first of many more,” Rahm said in Butler Cabin. “We both mentioned something about Seve, and if he had given us 10 more seconds, I think we would have both ended up crying.”
Sergio Garcia was the low amateur in 1999 when Olazábal won his second green jacket, and then Garcia won in 2017, the year Rahm made his Masters debut.
Not to be overlooked was just registering to play this week. Caddies are assigned numbers on their white coveralls in numerical order for when their players check in. Rahm’s caddie, Adam Hayes, had No. 49 — 4/9, the birthday of Ballesteros.
Stars aligned, and Rahm played some world-class golf. And to think he began the tournament with a four-putt double bogey on the opening hole.
This Masters had a little bit of everything — hot and humid at the start, a cold front with wind that toppled three trees on Friday, putting surfaces saturated from rain on Saturday and a marathon finish Sunday as Rahm and Koepka went 30 holes.
Koepka helped to pave the way with one miscue after another, losing the lead for the first time since Thursday afternoon when he chipped 20 feet past the hole from behind the par-3 sixth and made his second bogey. There would be more to come.
“Just some days you have it, some days you don’t, and today wasn’t one of those,” Koepka said. “But I feel good, and I expect to be there the other three (majors).”
Koepka went 22 consecutive holes Sunday without a birdie — from the par-5 eighth hole in the morning of the third round until the par-5 13th in final round. By then, he was three shots behind and Rahm all but sealed it with his next shot.
He hit a low cut around a tree from right of the 14th fairway and it caught a slope just right on the 14th green and fed down to 3 feet for a birdie. When Koepka three-putted for bogey, it was a matter of finishing.
Rahm hooked his tee shot into the trees on the final hole and didn’t reach the fairway. No matter. He played up the fairway, hit wedge to 3 feet and tapped in for the victory.
The leaderboard was littered with major champions and a tinge of Saudi-funded LIV Golf. Mickelson and Koepka both are part of the rival circuit. Former Masters champion Patrick Reed, another player who defected to LIV, closed with a 68 and tied for fourth with Jordan Spieth (66) and Russell Henley.
Tiger Woods wasn’t around for the finish. He withdrew Sunday morning before the third round resumed, saying plantar fasciitis in his foot was aggravating him. Woods also withdrew after three rounds of the PGA Championship last year in similarly cold, windy conditions at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Mickelson barely contends over 54 holes in the 48-man LIV Golf league. And then he played like the six-time major champion who two years ago became the oldest major champion at age 50 when he won the PGA Championship.
He stuffed his tee shot on the par-3 sixth, birdied the seventh and then finished in style. His approach to the 17th came within inches of going in for an eagle, and he pumped his first when his 12-foot birdie putt on the 18th dropped for a 65.
It matched his lowest score ever at Augusta National — he shot 65 in the opening round in the 1996 Masters and was at his Sunday best.
“Unfortunately it wasn’t enough, but it was really a lot of fun for me to play at this level again, and it’s encouraging for me going forward the rest of the year,” Mickelson said.
Rahm called it an incredible day, especially with his father coming over from Spain. He concluded his remarks at the trophy presentation on the 18th green by saying, “Happy Easter. And rest in peace, Seve.”
He then made the sign of the cross, kissed his finger and pointed to the blue sky.
Should we save a spot in the baseball annals for the “climate-ball” era? Climate change and its impact on home-run-favorable thinner air may earn a place in recorded history alongside Major League Baseball’s dead-ball era and the notorious black eye on America’s pastime when steroids juiced the power game.
The way that climate change heats up the air is sending an extra 50 or so home runs a year over the fences, and fans can expect several hundred more home runs per season with future warming, according to a new study out…
