Former Brave John Smoltz will play Nationwide event

One of the perks of being a major league baseball pitcher, besides the wealth and fame and all that, is the ability to get onto any golf course you want, any time. And for some, that privilege now extends to golf tournaments.

When he was part of the legendary mid-90s Atlanta Braves pitching rotation, John Smoltz, along with Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux, played golf at some of the country's best courses whenever road trips took them in that direction. Now retired, Smoltz has been given the honor of a sponsor's exemption into the South Georgia Classic at Kinderlou Forest Golf Club in Valdosta, Ga. in late April.

Smoltz, a scratch golfer, previously tried and failed to qualify for the U.S. Open. And he's acutely aware of the perception of athlete-as-golf-dilettante, illustrated by Jerry Rice's atrocious performance last year on the Nationwide Tour.  

"I don't want to step on anyone's toes," he told Golf Channel's Morning Drive. "I'm not looking to take anybody's spot who is aspiring to be a Tour professional. I have a lot of respect for everybody who does what they do on the Nationwide Tour."

Smoltz is one of the most decorated postseason pitchers in history, so he knows a thing or two about pressure. Come April 28, we'll find out if he can break down a course the way he broke down hitters.

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Super Bowl XLV Props Recap

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Is a 15-inch cup the future of golf?

How do you make golf fun for beginners, while also speeding up the pace of play on the course? Those were a couple of questions TaylorMade CEO Mark King tried to answer recently when asked about ways to make golf more enjoyable for the average player.

King's suggestion? Make the hole bigger. Not only would it make a round of golf more fun, it most likely would speed up the pace of play.

Sensing a potential story, Golf Digest Editor-and-chief Jerry Tarde decided to make King's dream a reality, hosting the first ever W I D E Open Championship last weekend at Pine Needles Lodge & GC. Instead of using the traditional 4 1/4-inch cup, the course replaced it wirth a gargantuan 15-inch version.

Of course, the hole made the game a lot more fun, with a number of golfers in the field shooting under par. With a hole almost the size of a baketball hoop, players would routinely have "gimmies" inside 25 feet. It also made chipping in a lot easier.

As Golf Digest's Pete Finch wrote, while the round was a complete success, it didn't leave golfers longing for courses where a 15-inch cup was the norm.

"The 15-inch cup was popular with most players. Many of the participants said they would enjoy doing it again, although they wouldn't want to play that way every time out," Finch said. "I felt the same way. It would be a great alternative to the usual scramble format at charity events. Or I could see dropping one round of "big-cup" golf midway into a buddies trip."

Therein lies the biggest issue of all. While golfers seemed to enjoy the gimmick round, there seemed to be a consensus at the event that the hole wasn't something they'd like to see all the time. But with groups routinely finishing in under 3 1/4 hours or less, it's hard to disagree with those that feel a bigger hole could speed up the pace of play.

But what about when novice golfers start to get the hang of the big hole? Maybe what you could do is have two or three different holes on the course for varying skill levels. As you progress from a 20 handicap to a 15, maybe you move from a 15-inch cup to a 10-inch version. It's just an idea.

While it was just round, it's nice to see that a bigger hole could potentially make the game more enjoyable for the average golfer.

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Lockout could prevent Packers from getting their Super Bowl rings

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In a labor battle where each side seems determined to prove that it can be smaller and more ridiculous than the other on a regular basis, the simple act of a team receiving its Super Bowl rings has now been thrown into limbo.

Bill Pennington of the New York Times reports that as long as the current lockout is in place, players and owners are prohibited from contacting each other. Therefore, the Packers' management can't consult with the players on the design of the rings the team won the right to wear when it beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 31-25, in Super Bowl XLV.� And since the two sides can't talk, there's apparently no way for both sides to wind up at the White House long enough to meet President Obama (who might be too busy dealing with his bracket to talk to them in the first place ? and who may try to get involved in the labor fight, to the presumed dismay of both sides). Teams usually receive their rings in June ceremonies, but the design obviously takes time.

To put it bluntly, the restrictions on the ring design and ring ceremony are ridiculous, punitive, and completely transparent on the NFL's part. Just a few days after NFL commissioner Roger Goodell bypassed the NFLPA completely and sent a form letter to every active NFL player, and as the ownership side keeps insisting that the NFLPA is more interested in litigation than mediation, we have these mysterious bans on rewards for the players on an all-of-a-sudden basis.

It's bad enough that players are locked out of team medical facilities at the same time the NFL has said that any violations of the NFL's currently nonexistent conduct policy will be dealt with when the work stoppage is over. But for the NFL to say that one rep can't get together on each side to at least agree on a design for Super Bowl rings smacks of the kind of "nyah, nyah, nyah" tactics these guys should have outgrown in second or third grade.

After all, the Packers'�organization currently benefits from sales of Super Bowl merchandise and highlights DVDs; perhaps since we're establishing a rule that neither side should gain from that game at this time, there should be a hold on the team's receipt of any merchandising revenue having to with the purchase of Super Bowl swag until this is all over?

In the end, this is totally unnecessary, and at a time when both sides are saying that they're open to anything that would break the logjam and get talks starting again, a simple and appropriate ceremony in which the players from the best team in football get what they're�due after the greatest game of their lives would be a great start. Until then, this is the kind of thing that has the NFL living up to every negative perception in the book.

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Brit writer says ‘biased’ American media is out to lynch Bisping

Following his resounding victory at UFC 127, Michael Bisping got himself in hot water by spitting at the corner of Jorge Rivera. The British middleweight was vilified by most of the MMA media and fans. That's sent The Telegraph's MMA expert Gareth Davies into a tizzy.

Davies suggests the American media is out to get Bisping, saying there was no balance to the stories written when both Chael Sonnen and Nate Marquardt called him out.

First we had Chael Sonnen, hardly a Saint himself, allowed to attack the Manchester middleweight with impunity. Where was the balance here from the US mainstream media covering MMA? Sonnen wrote UFC matchmaker Joe Silva an open letter, asking for a fight with Bisping. Fair enough.��How did the�US MMA media respond ? They wrote it up ignoring any of Sonnen's�misdemeanours in the sport. Balance ? None of it. But don't let the facts get in the way of a witchhunt.

From atop of his high horse, 'Nate the Great' added that Bisping's actions are unbecoming of a martial artist and were unsportsmanlike. No argument there, the spitting was utterly wrong, but am I really the only one who sees the irony here ?

Am I the only member of the media who can recall this same Marquardt�bringing home his own illegal knee to a downed opponent just two years ago ?�It was against�Wilson Gouveia [CORRECTION: It was Thales Leites at UFC 85].� Am I also the only one to recall�Marquardt followed that foul up with an illegal strike to the back of the head later in the fight? I know. I was there watching it live. Didn't�Marquardt himself bring�the sport into disrepute ? by testing positive for steroids on his UFC debut…

Davies calls me out for Cagewriter's Marquardt story.

Frankly that's no big deal. Davies and I have differing opinions on what to write in story that's simply reporting one fighter's quote about another. I don't believe the story needed to analyze whether Marquardt had the right to rip another fighter.

GAD assumes there's some anti-Bisping agenda. Funny things is, I may have the softest stance in the entire MMA media with regards to Bisping's future.

During Iole's appearance on ESPNRadio1100 following the incident on Mar. 1, I argued that the Bisping knee wasn't intentional and the spitting is something happens in the heat of the moment. I outright scoffed at the possibility of the middleweight being fired, but if some of the British media and Bisping want to believe it's them against the world - good deal, it makes for a fun storyline for the future.

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Back to 1990: Christian Slater, Richard Marx at Cali race

So there's this: at this weekend's Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway in California, Christian Slater will be Grand Marshal and Richard Marx will sing the National Anthem. In related news, Joe Montana recently led the San Francisco 49ers to a Super Bowl victory; a sprightly young Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton has his eye on the White House; and there's a cartoon on in prime time called "The Simpsons." (Yeah, like that'll last.)

Anyway, yeah, Slater and Marx. Why? I don't know. Well, I do know, but I don't really want to give voice to the answer. At least Sugar Ray Leonard will also be there to serve as Honorary Starter. But that's about as good as it gets. Because this time, there's no Nirvana around to stomp out these vestiges of the 1980s.

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Video: Preds’ Ryan Suter just misses out on own-goal hat trick

Seeing a player accidentally knock the puck into his own team's net during a hockey game is commonplace. Seeing him do it twice in the same game is not ... especially when the second own-goal is on a play that would make David Beckham proud.

Down 5-2 with under five minutes left in the game, the Anaheim Ducks needed all the help they could against the Nashville Predators on Thursday night. Unexpectedly, Nashville defenseman Ryan Suter was willing to lend a hand … for a deflection off of his glove and into his own net on a Teemu Selanne shot. Whoops (click here for the YouTube clip):

As own-goals go, that one was pretty tame. But with 27 seconds remaining in the game, Suter struck again on behalf of the Ducks, putting the puck past goalie Pekka Rinne in a rather unique fashion: By kicking it out of the air and into the net.

Wow. We suspect someone played a little hacky sack during his time at the University of Wisconsin. As Predators blogger Dirk Hoag opined: "Maybe Team USA could use Suter in the upcoming soccer game at LP Field. He made a perfect shot there at the end. [Or] if the NFL owners decide to call in the scabs, maybe Suter could become the Titans kicker?"

Luckily for Nashville, Suter didn't complete the own-goal hat trick, as the Predators held on for a 5-4 victory and their sixth win in seven games.

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