Who is Mason Graham, the Browns' Round 1 Draft pick?
The 6'3 and 296-pound California native played for the University of Michigan.
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According to the Browns, Graham appeared in 39 games during his college career with the Wolverines, making 108 tackles, 18 tackles for loss and nine sacks.
BLOOMINGTON, IN – NOVEMBER 09: Michigan Wolverines DL Mason Graham (55) warms up prior to a college football game between the Michigan Wolverines and Indiana Hoosiers on November 9, 2024 at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, IN (Photo by James Black/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
'The reason we like Mason is he has the ability to be an excellent pass rusher from the interior and that's really, really hard to find,' Browns General Manager Andrew Berry told reporters.
'They're telling me I'll fit right in with this team. You know, attacking, being disruptive on the front and playing alongside other great players is only going to make this better,' Graham said. 'I've been really close in Michigan these past few years so in Cleveland, I feel like I'll just come in and fit right in. This defensive, this culture that the team has… I can tell everyone is about business and wants to get back on top.'
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I-Team: 1-on-1 with Browns owner on new stadium, development project
'The most elite DT in the draft,' the Browns wrote on X. 'Adding a BEAST in the trenches.'
GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN – APRIL 24: Defensive Tackle Mason Graham of Michigan poses after being selected fifth overall pick by the Cleveland Browns during the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft at Lambeau Field on April 24, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Photo by)
Graham was the fifth overall pick in the draft after the Browns decided to trade their second overall pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
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New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Inside Liverpool's commercial juggernaut: New Adidas deal, 1.7bn engagements and why Asia matters
According to figures from Blinkfire Analytics, Liverpool had 1.7billion engagements across all social media platforms last season — more than the top 10 teams in the NFL or the NBA combined. There were 60m alone on the April day when Arne Slot's side clinched the Premier League title. Yet that is just one way in which the club's off-field operation has mushroomed in recent years. Over the past decade, commercial revenue has almost tripled. The last set of accounts for 2023-24 was significant in that, for the first time, commercial income (£308million) was more than half of total revenue (£614m). It was also the first time in the Premier League era that they had surpassed arch-rivals Manchester United (£303m) commercially. Advertisement 'There's been a step-change in terms of our revenue, but there's still a lot of room for us to grow,' Liverpool's chief commercial officer Ben Latty tells The Athletic. 'The potential is huge. I believe we're only just getting started in terms of where we can go as a commercial business. We have got the right people and the right structure in place to really kick on now.' Out-performing United or trying to reel in Manchester City (£344million), the only Premier League club with a higher income commercially, isn't what drives Latty and his staff, who are dotted around offices all over the world. He insists he 'wouldn't even be able to tell you what their commercial numbers are'. Instead, Liverpool's ambition revolves around maximising revenues from streams they can influence. 'Controllable revenue — matchday and commercial — is what I'm focused on,' Latty says. 'Media money is great but, to an extent, it's based on the on-pitch performance. We have to be a football club which is sustainable in everything we do.' Latty, who reports to Liverpool's CEO Billy Hogan, was promoted to the role of chief commercial officer in 2024, two years after returning to the fold as commercial director, having stepped down as head of global partnership sales in 2021 to join a group in Bristol operating professional teams in football, rugby union and basketball. The club have set up partnerships, with staff permanently based in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Boston and New York in the United States, and in London as well as on Merseyside at home. Multi-million pound deals have been struck with high-profile blue-chip U.S.-based brands such as mobile-phone firm Google Pixel, fitness company Peloton, logistics and shipping giants UPS and digital strategists Orion Innovation. But the importance of the Asian market to Liverpool remains as strong as ever. According to the club's data, they have close to 250million fans across the continent, and it is their biggest region for retail revenue. Advertisement Nine of Liverpool's 20 standalone retail stores across the world are in Asia, with the latest opening its doors in Hong Kong last week. They also have 48 official supporters' clubs spread across the continent. That is part of the appeal for shirt sponsors Standard Chartered and training kit sponsors AXA, as well as official partners such as Japan Airlines and Tokyo-based publisher Kodansha. Liverpool's current pre-season tour, with money-spinning friendly matches in Hong Kong and Japan, ticks a lot of boxes. 'When it comes to tours, we always assess the market and look at different options both east and west,' Latty says. 'Before we made any decisions, we sat down with (sporting director) Richard Hughes, (his assistant) David Woodfine, (director of medicine and performance) John Power and others to go through all the options available. 'Some will be questioned based on football suitability, training facilities, et cetera. Football preparation is paramount, but the football-operations team understand the commercial value of these tours, too. For us, it's about bringing the club closer to fans who maybe can't get to Anfield.' Twice during Brendan Rodgers' reign as manager, pre-season tours to Asia also involved fixtures in Australia. The only time Liverpool have gone there since 2015 was for a post-season friendly in Sydney in 2017. Was it ever on the agenda to visit Australia this time? 'There were some reports, but it was nowhere near advanced,' Latty says. 'We always look at it. We never rule it out, but for this tour specifically, the idea was that we would do these two games and then get back to Anfield. 'We would have looked to play another game at Anfield on top of Athletic Club (the Spanish side visit for two back-to-back games on Monday, August 4), but the success of the team meant we have the Community Shield to play (on August 10) before the Premier League game against Bournemouth on the Friday night (August 15). That meant the window was reduced.' Advertisement In the past, Liverpool alternated their pre-season tours between the U.S. and Asia. How about 2026? 'We always start to look at our options a year out,' Latty says. 'That will be a mix of speaking to promoters or looking at how we could do it ourselves. If you do it yourself, you take some of that risk and back yourself in terms of filling stadia. The football side guides us in terms of what's best for the team, and then you also take into account what's going to give you commercial security and enable you to make the most of the window available to us.' The links between the club's sponsors and Asia are clear, but there was no contractual obligation to play in either Hong Kong or Japan this summer. 'There are so many variables,' Latty explains. 'Stadium availability, opposition availability, making sure there are the right training facilities. There are no guarantees. But we know when a partner is focused on a certain market and if the stars align, then we try to make it work.' Current deals with Standard Chartered and sleeve sponsor Expedia run until 2027, with discussions over possible extensions due to begin imminently. 'We'll be starting that process, both in terms of having discussions with the incumbent and naturally you'd expect us to go and talk to the market as well,' Latty says. 'At this time, I don't believe there's any bigger football club than Liverpool.' There's the strange scenario on this tour of Liverpool playing in last season's Nike kit as their new deal with Adidas doesn't begin until August 1. It's down to the fact the start of Nike's five-year contract was delayed because the 2019-20 season was extended into the July due to a three-month hiatus enforced by the Covid-19 pandemic. Liverpool will wear Nike gear for the final time in a while against Yokohama F. Marinos at Nissan Stadium today (Wednesday) before flying home. The big Adidas launch will follow on Friday, with the flagship club store at Anfield reopening having undergone a major summer makeover. 'It's just the reality of the situation,' Latty says. 'When you think back to when we started the partnership with Nike, it was late because of Covid. One thing I will say is that Nike have been incredible. They said they would be good partners until the very end and they've been true to their word. In terms of providing the equipment and kit needed for this tour, they have delivered everything we asked for. Advertisement 'You tend to launch a new kit in May and potentially wear it for the final game of a season, depending on the significance of the fixture. We haven't been able to do that, but August 1 will be big for us.' Latty insists there was never any prospect of an agreement being reached where Adidas would take over a few months early: 'We were always going to honour the contract with Nike. When we first entered into discussions with Adidas, it was always clear when we could start the partnership and everyone knew exactly where they stood. It won't happen again and won't really impact us.' It means Liverpool have three new kits to launch in a short period of time — a process that will be staggered in the coming days. The Adidas deal will certainly be more profitable for them than the Nike one. Figures remain confidential, and it will be partly linked to sales and team performance, but the yearly windfall will be a lot more than the figure of £60million per year which had previously been mooted. A new club mobile app has been launched and, under the terms of the contract, Liverpool will continue to have the freedom to commission and sell their own branded merchandise through the club's retail operations. 'With kit deals, there are so many variables,' Latty adds. 'It's really hard to compare a kit deal with Liverpool to a kit deal with a competitor. The way we run our merchandising business is completely different to most other clubs as we do everything ourselves. Some clubs are happy to outsource it. 'For us, having flexibility and ensuring we get the product into the hands of our fans around the world through the right distribution network is really important. 'We had record kit sales year on year (with Nike). It was a competitive situation, and varying factors meant that Adidas were the party we moved forward with. They have been great in that, as long as it doesn't impact their business, we can do what we want. That's a successful part of the merchandising business we've got as we look to keep growing. 'As Billy Hogan said recently, we're one of the biggest clubs in the world and we want to act like it. That's the case both on and off the field.'
San Francisco Chronicle
3 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Officials work to unravel how and why gunman carried out deadly attack on NYC office building
NEW YORK (AP) — Investigators are piecing together more details about how a former high school football player who blamed the game for his mental health problems carried out a deadly attack on an office building that is home to the NFL. Shane Tamura killed four people on Monday before killing himself, spraying the skyscraper's lobby with bullets and then continuing his rampage on the 33rd floor, authorities said. Inside his wallet, a handwritten note claimed he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known at CTE, and accused the NFL of hiding the dangers of brain injuries linked to contact sports, investigators said. Detectives were still working to unravel more details about the 27-year-old's background and motivations. They planned to question a man who supplied gun parts for the AR-15-style rifle used in the attack, including the weapon's lower receiver, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a video statement. Among the dead were a police officer, a security guard and two people who worked at companies in the building. An NFL employee was badly wounded but survived. Tamura, a Las Vegas casino security worker, had intended to target the NFL's headquarters in the building but took the wrong elevator, officials said. It's unclear whether he showed symptoms of CTE, which can be diagnosed only by examining a brain after death. Tamura, who played high school football in California a decade ago but never played in the NFL, had a history of mental illness, police said without giving details. In the three-page note found on his body, he accused the NFL of concealing the dangers to players' brains for profit. The degenerative brain disease has been linked to concussions and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports such as football. At a Tuesday night vigil for those killed in the shooting, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and other faith leaders delivered prayers at a park about a dozen blocks from where the shooting took place. Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul spoke of the need for stronger gun laws. 'We cannot respond to senseless gun laws through vigils,' Adams said. NFL boss calls shooting 'unspeakable' Tamura's note repeatedly said he was sorry and asked that his brain be studied for CTE. The NFL long denied the link between football and CTE, but it acknowledged the connection in 2016 testimony before Congress and has paid more than $1.4 billion to retired players to settle concussion-related claims. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who works out of the offices, called the shooting 'an unspeakable act of violence." The shooting happened at a skyscraper on Park Avenue, one of the nation's most recognized streets, just blocks from Grand Central Terminal and Rockefeller Center. It is less than a 15-minute walk from where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed last December by a man who prosecutors say was angry over what he saw as corporate greed. Video shows the gunman stroll into the building Tamura drove across the country in the days before the attack and into New York City, Tisch said. Surveillance video showed him exit his BMW outside the building at about 6:30 p.m. Monday wearing a button-down shirt and jacket with the rifle at his side. Once inside the lobby, he opened fire and killed Islam and Wesley LePatner, a real estate executive at the investment firm Blackstone, which occupies much of the building. Tamura then made his way toward the elevator bank, shooting the NFL employee and an unarmed security guard, Aland Etienne, who helped control access to the upper floors. Tamura waited for the next elevator to arrive in the lobby, let a woman walk safely out of the elevator, then rode it up to the 33rd-floor offices of the company that owns the building, Rudin Management. He killed a worker for that company before killing himself, officials said. Friends and family mourn killed officer Officer Didarul Islam, 36, who was guarding the building on a paid security job when he was killed, had served as a police officer in New York City for over three years. He was an immigrant from Bangladesh and was working a department-approved building security job when he was shot. Islam leaves a pregnant wife and two children. Friends and family stopped by their Bronx home on Tuesday to drop off food and pay their respects. 'He was a very friendly guy and a hardworking guy,' said Tanjim Talukdar, who knew him best from Friday prayers. 'Whenever I see him or he sees me, he says, 'How are you, my brother?'' ___ Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut, and Seewer from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press reporters Michael Balsamo, Philip Marcelo and Julie Walker in New York; Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia, Rob Maaddi in Tampa, Florida; Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey; and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
New York Times
3 hours ago
- New York Times
The Scheffler paradox: How sportspeople cope when winning is not enough
There are certain things we've become accustomed to hearing from sportspeople on the eve of a major competition. Most are nebulous, designed to give away as little as possible. 'I'm in a good place,' for example, or 'I'm ready to give my all.' So when the world's top-ranked golfer, Scottie Scheffler, arrived in Northern Ireland ahead of the 153rd Open Championship earlier this month and told the world's media that he sometimes wonders what the point of it all is, it made headlines. Advertisement Most of what Scheffler said was not controversial. The 29-year-old American spoke about the importance of faith and family and about how, 14 months after the birth of his son, Bennett, the sport that is his job is not the be-all and end-all of his existence. 'I'm blessed to be able to play golf,' he said, 'but if my golf ever started affecting my home life or the relationship with my wife or son, that's going to be the last day that I play out here for a living.' In a press conference answer lasting around five minutes, Scheffler also spoke about the fleeting euphoria that accompanies success. There is a sense of accomplishment in winning big tournaments, he said, but not one that is 'fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart.' 'You get to number one in the world, and… what's the point?' he added. 'Why do I want to win this tournament so bad?' Five days later, Scheffler had won yet another tournament, his fourth major in just over three years, and was naturally asked to reflect on those pre-Open comments. 'I've worked my entire life to become good at this game and play for a living,' he said. 'It's one of the great joys of my life. But having success is not what fulfils the deepest desires of your heart.' Scheffler did acknowledge he was 'pretty excited to celebrate this one', but the week was a rare insight into the mind of a champion athlete that seemed to contradict so much of what is written and spoken about elite sportspeople; that they 'want it' more than their opponents. That they are selfish. That they never switch off. That winning isn't everything to them; it's the only thing. What, then, can we learn from Scheffler? And how did his comments land with contemporaries in other sports who have also reached the pinnacle? Though the timing of his remarks, just before one of his sport's most prestigious tournaments and in the middle of a career-high purple patch, was rare, Scheffler isn't the only athlete to have found more questions than answers in success. In Aaron Rodgers' Netflix documentary series Enigma, the NFL quarterback reflected on his 2011 Super Bowl win with the Green Bay Packers and how accomplishing the one thing he'd always wanted in life at age 27 left him feeling lost. Advertisement 'Now what?,' he asked. 'I was like, 'Did I aim at the wrong thing? Did I spend too much time thinking about stuff that ultimately doesn't give you true happiness?'.' When British boxer Tyson Fury ended the nine-year reign of Wladimir Klitschko to become world heavyweight champion in 2015, it was the realisation of a childhood dream. But in his subsequent book, Behind the Mask, Fury writes that though he had 'finally got to the end of the rainbow, the pot of gold seemed to be missing… The world tells of success as such a wonderful story, the pinnacle of happiness. But my experience was that there was just a void, and it felt like everyone was trying to get something from me.' A number of Olympic athletes have spoken openly about the emotional comedown that can follow triumph at the Games. American swimmer Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time with 23 gold medals, talked to NBC News last year about how he would sink into depression after the conclusion of each four-yearly Games, starting in 2004 when he won six events in the Athens edition. 'You get to like the edge of the cliff and you're like, 'Cool… Now what?,' he said. While these are all individual cases, experiencing a down period after such a high is a familiar scenario among elite sportspeople. 'I worked with an Olympic athlete who won gold in Paris (last year) and there is a well-known psychological phenomenon about depression after this, because if your life reaches its crescendo in your early twenties, what's left?,' says Gary Bloom, the first psychotherapist to work at an English football club (Oxford United) and who has also assisted a range of top-level athletes. 'How do you motivate yourself to go beyond that? 'That's really an ego-driven concept, based on the idea that somehow your personality and your success are one and the same. Many sportspeople become synonymous with what they do, rather than who they are.' Advertisement Scheffler, though, seems to be the antithesis of the ego-driven athlete. Bloom says the golfer's assertion that winning is 'fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it's not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart' indicates he has 'stepped outside the euphoria of winning in sport and asked himself the existential question of, 'What's all this for?' If it's about winning a cup or a gold medal, I think that says a lot about the ego of the individual which needs feeding. 'Succeeding is very ego-driven. But something that's spirituality-driven is much harder to achieve. Also, for his age, it's pretty unusual. For someone so young, I would strongly suspect there's an element of religious observance going on.' Scheffler is, indeed, a devout Christian who, after putting on his first champion's green jacket at The Masters in 2022, told reporters that his identity was 'not a golf score. All I'm trying to do is glorify God, and that's why I'm here.' Performance psychologist Jamil Qureshi says that finding the sweet spot where an athlete's sport doesn't define them – where they can also be a partner, parent, sibling, businessperson or something else entirely – can lead to both happiness and success. 'Happiness is when you lose yourself to something which is bigger than you,' says Qureshi. 'This is why those people whose vocation turns into their vacation, who chase their passion more than their pension, are the ones who are happily successful.' Qureshi draws a distinction between having a purpose and having a goal. A sportsperson who has a target of winning three tournaments in a year or shooting in the 60s on all four days of a golf tournament might believe that's their purpose, but it's actually a goal. 'It's why Tiger Woods keeps working,' says Qureshi. 'Why Richard Branson keeps working. Why Cristiano Ronaldo keeps working. Because purpose is never achieved, it's fulfilled on a daily basis.' Advertisement That is something Britain's two-time Olympic rowing champion Helen Glover discovered as she went through a career that saw her return from five years in retirement and after having three children to reach another two finals at the Games — finishing fourth in the coxless pairs with team-mate Polly Swann in Tokyo, then winning a silver medal in the coxless fours in Paris last year at age 38. Initially though, Glover believed that achieving her goal of Olympic gold was all she needed to be happy. She recalls going for a walk in the weeks before her first Games, London 2012, and being confronted by a 'really clear thought that if I can just win the Olympics, I will never be sad again.' Speaking to The Athletic now, she says, 'winning in London was a great moment, but not for the reasons I thought it would be. When I was 12, I thought you cross the finish line, punch the air and feel this rush of success and excitement. But I crossed the line and felt nothing but relief for the fact that we had not mucked up. I felt a total dissociation with the moment. It was too big for me.' Glover knew very quickly after those Olympics that she wanted to do it again four years later at the next Games in Rio de Janeiro — not just the winning part, but the whole process. The motivation, she says, was waking up every day and training alongside coxless-pairs partner Heather Stanning and their coach Robin Williams to find out the answer to one question: How good can we be? 'It was just us versus us,' she says. 'They say you race how you train, and we trained every day with that mentality of, 'How good can we be?', not just, 'Can we win?'.' Part of the problem, says Qureshi, is that sport is judged on outcomes. That, he adds, is 'why people feel euphoria and happiness if they've achieved something, but it's almost like it's a monkey off their back more than an achievement.' There is also a kind of mismatch, says Qureshi, between the time, dedication and sacrifice it has taken to reach that moment of glory and the fact it is, by nature, fleeting. Advertisement 'When a boxer wins in the first round and people say it's £10million for two minutes' work, it's not. They've been training all their lives. Everything goes towards being good enough to win, so you almost want there to be a proportionate reward to effort. You want to achieve something and feel as though it's been worth it.' That's certainly a feeling that resonates with British double Olympic triathlon champion Alistair Brownlee. He believes Scheffler's comments cut to the heart of why the best athletes are motivated to do what they do. 'It's obvious to me,' he tells The Athletic, 'that when something means so much to you, when you've trained for 50 weeks a year, 35 hours a week, put in all that hard work and had sleepless nights with injuries over many years, standing on the podium for five minutes is never going to provide the satisfaction you need to make up for all of that.' Brownlee, who took Olympic gold in 2012 and 2016, then went on to race in Ironman events before retiring from professional sport last year, says that if trying to win at the Olympics had been his only motivation, it wouldn't have been enough. 'I had to have other forms of motivation and inspiration. It sounds clichéd, but it's very true; I found you really do have to find satisfaction and real joy in the everyday journey of getting better. 'The vast majority of athletes who are successful at anything start as young kids, doing it for fun — for some kind of intrinsic motivation. But sometimes the reasons why you do it can get lost along the way.' Brownlee's realisation of his 'why' came one morning in the period after London 2012, when he got up one morning and had no real reason to go to training. Regardless, he went along, got into the pool and started swimming up and down. 'After 20 minutes of swimming as hard as I could for no reason at all, it hit me — 'This is just what I do. It's who I am. I'm not here to train for races or for any particular reason, this is just fundamentally who I am'. Even now, I'm out cycling and running pretty much every day. It's very much part of my DNA.' For Qureshi, 'consistency of mind gives consistency of play', and athletes whose mood does not fluctuate wildly depending on their results may get better ones. Former England cricketer Ian Bell identifies with the sentiment. 'I felt that as a young player, sometimes my mood or how I could act would be determined by my outcome, and that shouldn't really be the case,' he tells The Athletic. 'As you mature and come through things, you realise that, actually, even though in sport we live in an outcome-focused world, as a person and as an athlete you can't live in that.' Advertisement Bell, who played in 118 Test matches between 2004 and 2015, says that as he went through his career, becoming a husband and father, he came to understand the importance of consistent behaviour and understanding that having a good day on the field 'doesn't necessarily mean you're the best guy in the world. It's trying to stay in that level emotional state where you're consistent in how you are with people around you and how you train.' When he heard Scheffler's comments before The Open, Bell says they resonated with the part of him that remembers how quickly life moves on. He looks back on multiple victories — particularly those against Australia, the arch-enemy for an English cricketer — as amazing experiences he would love to re-live but also recalls how 'everyone talks about it for 48 hours, then life carries on. All that work you put in as a young sportsperson to get there and you have this feeling that life will be so different or a certain way, and sometimes it doesn't feel like that.' For Bell, it means Scheffler has the perfect mindset to succeed. 'He wasn't putting any pressure on himself or on an outcome, even though he still got that outcome,' he says. 'It's a nice place to be as an athlete when you're not living or dying on your results and realise there's a bigger picture.' It all seems so contradictory to the rhetoric we often hear about success requiring an 'all-in' attitude. In reality, says Qureshi, 'it's about finding the right state. Some people (in professional golf) perform much better when they have an intensity which goes from Tuesday (when they arrive for a tournament) to Sunday (the final round). Others perform better when they do a small amount on the range, then come back and play with their kids. You find what works for you. 'Intensity really is in the impact moment; when you find yourself in the rough, when you're deciding on your course management, that's when we need to react with intensity, commitment and execution.' Advertisement Glover had success with both approaches during her rowing career. In her twenties, the sport was her everything. Later, after getting married and starting a family, that changed. While she maintained her aggression in her racing and training, she also came to realise 'there are aspects of life which I would drop rowing for in a heartbeat'. She would look at her team-mates, who were largely still in their twenties, and recognise that they felt differently. 'And that was cool, because it had been the same for me,' Glover says. 'Our definition of success will change. It's exciting that you'll find different things in your life that give you a massive sense of satisfaction. It doesn't always have to be finishing first.' Even taking this individual approach into account, Scheffler's closing sentiment in his pre-Open press conference was perhaps the one that raised most eyebrows: 'I love to put in the work. I love getting to practice. I love getting to live out my dreams. But at the end of the day, sometimes I just don't understand the point.' This sentiment is all about perspective, says Qureshi, and recognising that where you are in your life will create a new way of seeing what you do, how you do it and why. And the impact of that is hard to predict. 'If Scheffler is now seeing golf in a different manner to 10 years ago, he might be questioning it in a way that takes him away from performance or towards better performance,' says Qureshi. 'Would you be surprised if, in the next few years, he says, 'I'm giving up the game, I've achieved what I want to'? Or would you be surprised if he goes on and does even more and plays longer because he's found a state of mind and compartmentalised it in regard to the other elements of his life?'. It could be either. For Qureshi, what's most important is to understand that for athletes who do reach the very top of their sport, the outcome is often not the only thing that matters. He was working with another golfer, Paul McGinley, in 2005 when the Irishman was in contention to win the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational tournament in the United States going into its fourth and final day. 'Tiger Woods had barely hit a fairway for three days but ended up winning,' recalls Qureshi. 'In his interview afterwards, you could see that his excitement and exhilaration had come from the manner in which he'd played golf, not necessarily from the outcome. Advertisement 'He was pleased with how he responded and reacted to the mistakes he made. He was robust, resilient, committed. Players at this level get a lot out of understanding how they're playing the game as much as what they're achieving.' Ultimately, Scheffler is showing that there is more than one route to success. And his words have clearly resonated with athletes from a variety of sports. Before Formula One's Belgian Grand Prix last weekend, McLaren driver Lando Norris — a huge golf fan who plays off an eight handicap — said he related to the American's words. But his main takeaway is a pertinent one: 'Just let the person be whatever they want to be. They don't have to live the exact life that you think they should, or say what you think they should. 'He lives very much his own way, and I think it's quite cool to see someone like that achieving what he is. You have to respect that.' Additional reporting: Luke Smith
