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NBC Sports
a day ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
As it was for Phil, as it is for Bryson, the desire for perfection meets the need for creativity at The Open
After shooting a 78 in the opening round of the 153rd Open, Bryson DeChambeau needed a big day on Friday. He got exactly that. Watch how it happened. PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland – An eagle-eyed reporter questioned Bryson DeChambeau on Friday about a golf ball that he appeared to be using in practice but not competition this week at The Open. Caught tinkering, again, DeChambeau gave a wry smile. Then he offered a defense of his unique strategy – and a glimpse into his future plans. 'I need help out here,' he conceded. At Royal Portrush and everywhere else, DeChambeau is an iconoclast in search of efficiency, optimization and, ultimately, perfection. There's no one quite like him. Not how he thinks and strategizes. Not how he practices and rarely plays. Not with the one-of-one equipment he uses. And not, if everything stays on schedule, where he hopes to go. Over the past few years, DeChambeau has been working feverishly with his team of nerds to design a new golf ball that performs better at his off-the-charts speeds. He wants to lower his sky-high flight, but he's been having trouble dialing in the right combination, especially when his steep angle of descent produces a tremendous amount of spin with his irons but, curiously, not with his wedges, which come off high with little zip. It's a work in progress. No, DeChambeau told the reporter, he didn't experience a eureka moment on the range earlier this week. But he's getting closer. He's been told the first iteration of the ball – his ball – could be in his hands within the next few weeks. Then, and perhaps only then, he'd be able to have better, more predictable control of his shots. As DeChambeau explained, 'I need a golf ball that on wedges can click on the face most consistently. I get a lot of slipping on the face, just because of how vertical I am and how much loft I have, and it just rolls up the face and launches with no spin most of the time on my shots, so getting something that comes off at a more consistent trajectory in adverse conditions is really the goal.' As with most things with DeChambeau, he's searching for answers not by altering his style but by tweaking his equipment. It's his usual course of action. Going to same-length irons. Less driver loft. More clubhead curvature. And now, with his ball, a different core and composition. He's equal parts innovative and stubborn. But with a highly stylized game that is productive all but one week a year, DeChambeau also offers a fascinating parallel to a superstar of the previous generation, another iconoclast who enjoyed pushing the boundaries of his equipment and forever believed that his way was the right way. Phil Mickelson couldn't figure out links golf, either. At least not initially. He preferred to rear back and rip it. Send towering iron shots into the sky. Grab his 60-degree wedge and attempt another magic trick around the greens. That Americanized style made Mickelson wildly successful. A sure-fire Hall of Famer long before he headed to Muirfield in the summer of 2013. But he always felt there was a gaping hole in his competitive resume at the only major that wasn't played in the U.S.; in his first 11 appearances at The Open, he couldn't muster a single top-10 despite establishing himself as the second-best player of his generation. So, ahead of the 2004 Open, Mickelson and Dave Pelz, the late short-game guru, set out on a quest to learn some new shots. Overseas, Mickelson incorporated a full-swing 'chip' that he used off the tee to put the ball in play more often and allow him to showcase his myriad other gifts. The extra reconnaissance paid off; Mickelson placed third that year, by far his best effort to date. He was the runner-up in 2011. And then, two years later, he completed the links double, winning the Scottish Open and Open Championship in consecutive weeks. 'I think winning in 2013 was the greatest accomplishment in my career because I had to learn a style of golf that I didn't grow up playing,' Mickelson said Thursday. 'It's the greatest source of pride for me as a player to overcome those obstacles. Now, I've come to really love it, enjoy it, and I seem to play well in some of the adverse conditions, too.' That prompted a follow-up: Why was it important to him? Why adapt for just one tournament a year when, for the other 51 weeks, he was a threat to win anywhere and at any time? 'I just think it's a sign of a complete player,' he said. It'd be the ultimate achievement for DeChambeau, too. His top-end results in this championship are slightly better than Mickelson's – he finished sixth three years ago, at St. Andrews – but it's his only top-30 in seven tries so far. This year, at Portrush, he looked well on his way to another early exit following a birdie-less 78 in Round 1, but he capitalized on benign morning conditions to card a Friday 65, matching the low round of the day, just to make the cut. Still, afterward, DeChambeau appeared unmoved. Perhaps because he knew he wasn't close to conquering this outstanding goal. It was just his eighth under-par score in 24 career Open rounds. 'In order to be a complete golfer, you've got to win over here,' DeChambeau agreed. 'That's something I've struggled to do. I've played well at times when it's dry and the greens are more consistent in their bounce and the greens are a little bit better. But when it gets as chaotic as this, with the wind going every which way, you have to be a complete golfer that pivots on demand. 'I think (Mickelson) is right – it's the most proud moment of his career. And for me, if it was ever to happen in my career, it probably would be the proudest as well.' DeChambeau is the most blatant (and successful) example of the Trackman generation that now dots the professional landscape. Athletes built for speed who have exploited all of the new-age technology to optimize their swings and their games. Headstrong alphas unyielding in their approach. In many ways, they're smart to lean into the high-powered ball-bashing that can destroy run-of-the-mill tour courses susceptible to high-launch, low-spin driving and flag-hunting approach play. On the right week, with optimal conditions, they'll cash in. But Open success relies on players flashing other skills and adapting in ways that are uncommon on the every-week tour. Varying trajectory. Bending shots both directions. Using multiple techniques around the green. There's also the mental computations, the strategy, and calculating other variables like wind and runout. Some of the best Open players of the past decade – Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth – all excel in those areas. It's reasonable to believe, with his dynamic skill set, that Scottie Scheffler – who grew up playing shot-shaping games at home in wind-swept Dallas – will soon thrive in this event, too. (He's near the top of the leaderboard in Round 2.) 'I've always been creative and had a good imagination when it comes to hitting shots,' said Rickie Fowler, who sports a tidy Open record despite boasting the second-highest apex height on Tour, at nearly 130 feet. 'Growing up on a flat driving range, I had to picture different things and hit different shots. Over here, there's obstacles out there, but you have to at times be able to see the shots and then execute it as well.' Brian Harman, the 2023 Open champ, is a throwback in that sense, too; he might use TrackMan for validation or verification but never optimization. He trusts his hands and his instincts. It took a little seasoning – he went 0-4 in the 2006 Palmer Cup in his first taste – but he came to love links golf. The stingers. The iron shots held into a strong crosswind. The straight-faced chip shots that don't expose the bounce. 'Places like this force you to be a little bit more creative,' Harman said. 'There's probably 10 different types of clubs, irons, drivers and woods that you can hit off the tee. There's different ways to attack into the green. I just enjoy the creativity and trying to think your way around. You're not forced to hit certain shots. You can do it your own way.' Earlier this week, Harman played a practice round at Portrush with Andrew Novak, who was making his Open debut. In just a few days Novak had understood (if not mastered) some of the intricacies of this unique brand of golf. The lack of grain around the greens and how it opens up a variety of shots. The discipline to play away from tucked flags, accepting 40 feet as a reasonable approach, or take on risk. Both the benefit and potential drawback of playing your preferred, stock shot. Tips and tricks that can't be found on a Trackman or with adjustments to his equipment. The idea that only winning on a proper links can make Novak a 'complete player' is still a bit foreign to him. He's 30 and just now breaking out. This year, he won for the first time on Tour, in a team event. This is only his fourth career major start, period. But the concept of completeness still held some meaning to him, particularly now that he's pushed his way into the game's elite. 'That's a very nice bonus that you can point to,' Novak said, 'like, Hey, look – I can do that, too. That's pretty impressive to say.'
Cosmopolitan
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Cosmopolitan
My Mom Chose to Leave the U.S. Before She Could Be Taken
Leading up to the election, my mom thought about going back to Mexico before she could potentially be deported. It wasn't until February that she gathered me and my two siblings for a family meeting to break the news. She knew we would be fine because we're no longer living with her at 32, 29, and 23 years old. But I know she was thinking about her grandkids and the milestones she might miss. We're planning a quinceañera for my daughter in two years. Will she be there for that? Or my niece and nephew's baptisms? All those questions rushed through my head, but mostly, I worried for her safety. She didn't want to risk staying in the U.S. because her biggest fear is getting detained. My mom is strong, but she has been working all her life and has accumulated injuries, including a bad back and a bad hip. She's also a little bougie, and if she were detained, she'd pretty much be in jail. I didn't believe it when she told us. She's so Americanized—I couldn't see her going back, but I knew if my mom was going to feel safer and more comfortable in Mexico, then I had to make peace with it. My mom had humble beginnings in Mexico, but she built a new life with hope for better opportunities in the U.S. when she moved here in 1989. She started as a garment worker because that's what she knew. She would leave for work first thing in the morning, way before we ate breakfast. Because she wasn't able to drop us off at school, we were left with my aunt, who also lived with us because they immigrated here together. It was a full house of around 12 people because we shared the space with my 4 cousins and my aunt, who watched us and cooked for everybody while my mom worked 12-hour days. She was a seamstress, but her job had sweatshop vibes. The workers would get paid pennies per piece as they went through stacks of fabric and hemmed them together into wearable clothes. My mom wanted to be a teacher growing up, but she gave up on that dream for the reality of raising our family. She was exhausted once she got home from long days at work, but my siblings and I always made time to crawl into bed with her and watch telenovelas like La Fea Mas Bella, Teresa, and Destilando Amor. We loved spending time with her, no matter what we did. On the weekends, she would tell us to be ready so we could go out to eat. It wasn't anything fancy—we'd go to McDonald's and local Mexican restaurants. When garment work died down, she picked up different side hustles. She would make and sell food and desserts and sell perfume and even started delivering on DoorDash and Uber Eats to help us get by. My mom is undocumented, but she was granted a work permit. At one point, it expired, and she once had to renew it and go through the whole process of proving her eligibility and immigration status. We weren't in a financially good place. The filing fees range from $260 to $520, and at the time, it would have taken months to process her application. She didn't end up renewing it because of this delay, so in the early 2000s, my siblings and I looked into my mom applying for American citizenship. That's when she became paranoid about being deported. We would hear stories of people being forced to go to Mexico for up to 10 years as a penalty for seeking citizenship with an expired work permit. She was scared of everything, but life took over. She was used to living this way—to surviving. I first learned about ICE in middle school, when I did my first protest. It was 2006, and people were walking out of schools to protest the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act, which would have made it a felony to be in the U.S. without legal status. It didn't feel as bad as it does now, but it still left a mark on me and my family. I knew that my parents were undocumented, and I knew if we—the ones who were born here—didn't say anything about it, ICE could just come and take my mom and my stepdad, who are both Mexican immigrants. For all of it to come back around 20 years later has me at a loss for words. When I saw Trump had won the presidency, I went completely numb. I didn't even want to know how bad it was going to get, and it's at its worst with his latest legislation. As the 'Big, Beautiful Bill' passes and ICE potentially becomes the most heavily funded law enforcement agency in the government, I can't help but feel disgusted. I couldn't rightfully celebrate Independence Day when everybody's losing their independence. It just seems so off. It reminds me of the Nazi era and tragic genocide that followed it. When we were sending my mom off in Tijuana, I told my family that I was going to record everything as a memory for us. Then I thought, Wait, this would be a good post for me to share on Instagram and TikTok. Like, 'Come with me to self-deport my mom.' It was such a crazy way to start a video, but I hoped that it would help people. My daughter was like, 'What are you doing? Why are you sharing this? This is why people hate influencers. Why are you recording?' My mom even told me not to post anything until she made it safely to Guerrero, where she is now. It's hard to come by a viral video that doesn't have hateful comments. The fact that my post reached people and had so many positive comments made me feel like I wasn't alone. I knew I was doing something right when I got DMs from people who voted for Trump, saying, 'This is not what I voted for.' The fact that I'm getting empathy from the other side threw me off and was the last thing I expected. It was important to me that putting this out there wasn't an advertisement to self-deport. A Spanish television network, Univision, and other networks were running ads from the Department of Homeland Security that warned illegal immigrants to leave the U.S., and it received a lot of backlash. I was upset by it, and I wanted to make sure that wasn't what I portrayed in my videos. But I also didn't want to tell people that they have to stay here, take the abuse, and get arrested. Even though this is still happening and people will be affected by this, knowing that my mom's safe with my grandma—whom she hadn't seen in 22 years—keeps me strong in this fight. She feels at peace since she's not paying rent out there so she doesn't have to look for work right away. At the same time, I see that she's struggling to readjust. She reassures me that she's fine, but then I'll see it in her eyes. The one thing my mom made me and my siblings promise is that we would be close. We agreed to see each other once a week, just like we did when she was here. Going on family outings without her doesn't feel right because her presence was very loud. I forget that she's so far away because we talk so much in our family group chat, but not being able to depend on her has been a crazy adjustment. I've been supporting local Mexican restaurants to fill the void of her home-cooked meals and to help the vendors, who are also struggling under the Trump administration. Latinos are more than just work or what we can provide to the economy—we're human beings, we're parents, we're children. With everything that's been happening under this administration, we're being treated like trash or some kind of pests. I want to move away from that narrative and remind people of our humanity.
Business Insider
27-06-2025
- General
- Business Insider
I kept my married name when I divorced. My children did not.
When I got divorced, I didn't change my last name to my maiden name. I felt like our common last name connected me to our children. Some of my children decided to change their names to my maiden name. One of the first questions my divorce attorney asked when she began compiling the paperwork for court was, "Do you want to revert to your maiden name?" I said no for only one reason: I wanted to have the same last name as my children. We had been married for 24 years and had five children. We'd chosen names for them that had deep personal meaning and merged my Jewish heritage with their father's Cambodian culture. Our common last name united me with my children in a way our DNA could not. I'm the mom of biracial kids Sharing a last name tells the world you're connected. As the mother of bi-racial children, it wasn't always obvious that I was their mom, yet my identity has always rested in that role as their primary parent. Maybe it's my own judgmental nature that led to the decision not to change my name. I am prone to concoct all kinds of fantastical stories about why a woman may have a different last name from her child. I'm usually wrong. We raised our children in a small town where gossip was rife. As a divorced woman, I'd felt held to a certain level of scrutiny. I didn't want to go to court anymore. It felt safer to hold on to my married name. Not everyone had to know my marriage had fallen apart. My children made a different choice. They started going by my last name On a visit home from college, my oldest son told me he'd decided to use Solomon as his last name. Although he did not change it legally — an unwieldy process that is only getting more complicated — he Americanized his Cambodian nickname, dropped his last name, and added my maiden name. When his dad left home, he was 16, but it wasn't until he moved across the country to attend college in California that he took on the new identity. As an aspiring filmmaker, he believed his new name might open more doors for him. My daughter also changed her name when she started college. She created a new first name from an acronym of her initials and swapped Yem for Solomon. I didn't know it until I visited her on campus and was greeted by her roommate with a "nice to meet you, Mrs. Solomon." These two siblings made their name changes independently and without consulting each other. It ended up being more of a coincidence than anything else, but not all my children swapped names. The two boys in the middle are still Yems. One has Solomon as a middle name and probably did not see the need to make any changes. He did pass it down to his son as a middle name, perhaps starting a family tradition. My daughter-in-law kept her maiden name when she married him. She feels very attached to it both personally and professionally, but she has no interest in adding hers to her children's names as a hyphenate or otherwise. I felt honored My youngest son is the only other one who's married. Before their ceremony, his wife wanted them both to use Solomon as a last name. They considered it but came up against the roadblocks of a legal name change. There are forms to fill out and hefty fees to pay. In California, an announcement must appear as a legal notice in the local newspaper for a month, incurring another sizable fee. Then two to three months down the road, you appear before a judge who makes a final ruling and issues a court order with a new legal name. After that, your Social Security number, driver's license, passport, and other documents must all be updated. It was exhausting for them to contemplate while planning a wedding. They ultimately decided they would hyphenate their last names, each adding the other's as a symbol of their love and commitment. I never stopped to consider why my children made name changes. I felt deeply honored by what I perceived as an act of love and support for me. It didn't occur to me that there might be a deeper meaning behind their decisions. Back then, I was so consumed with my own grief at the dissolution of my marriage, I didn't realize my children might be feeling the same sense of abandonment I was experiencing. As I reflect on their decisions now, I realize they each made profound pronouncements about the impact of the divorce on their lives, along with their fidelity to me.
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Florida is now the Stanley Cup's semi-permanent home. What does that mean for Canada?
'There are a lot of things I do not understand about this proposed expansion,' New York Times sports columnist George Vecsey wrote in December 1992, as the NHL wrapped up its annual Board of Governors meeting in Palm Beach, Florida. During that week's meeting, the league received expansion proposals for two teams. One was for a team in Anaheim, California, backed by Disney. The other was for a team in Miami, Florida, put forward by waste management-and-VHS-video magnate, Wayne Huizenga. 'What makes it think the Sun Belt is ready for all these hockey teams?' Vecsey wondered. At the time, the answer was money. With more time, the answer seems to be: because championship hockey teams can be built anywhere, including in the South. On Tuesday night in Florida, the Panthers won their second-straight Stanley Cup against the Edmonton Oilers, this time in six games – one fewer than they needed last season. If anything, you could now argue that there's no better place to build a championship NHL team than the southern US. Since 1990, the Stanley Cup has been awarded to a team based in the South nine times – but five of those have come in the last six years. And three of those have also been against Canadian teams. Advertisement North of the border back in 1992, the fear of American dominance was palpable, even though, at that time, the most recent expansion to Tampa Bay and San Jose (alongside Ottawa) looked like an on-ice failure. Nevertheless, the mere presence of these teams, not to mention two more, was a concern. 'This is the age of marketing, my friends, and we're selling image, brand names, fuzzy feelings and merchandising opportunities,' Globe and Mail sports columnist John Allemang warned after the NHL's December 1992 meeting, sarcastically proposing changes for the increasingly Americanized, commodified game. 'Let's scrap this three-period stuff, introduce the concept of half-time,' he snarked. 'Emilio Estevez learned to skate for Mighty Ducks, give him a chance, tell him the wife [Paula Abdul] can sing the national anthem. The American anthem, stupid. Is there any other?' Beyond the potential for merch sales and richer owners, 'does anyone else win?' Montreal Gazette columnist Pat Hickey asked around the same time. 'Then there's the question of what these new franchises do for the Canadian psyche,' Hickey wrote. 'If we ever thought this was our game, the latest decision on expansion should dispel this notion.' It seems hardly worth repeating that Florida's win Tuesday further extends the Canadian Stanley Cup drought to now 32 years, more or less fulfilling the worst fears of those sports columnists, and many others, who saw the NHL's US growth as a threat to the sport's true identity and thus by extension to that of its birth country, Canada. And they weren't entirely wrong. This year, more than most others, the existential threat of American dominance on the ice spoke to a bigger Canadian national identity crisis that would have seemed unthinkable in 1992. The idea that Canada, including hockey, could be subsumed by the US has felt more pressing than ever. Canadians – like swimming phenom Summer McIntosh or NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander – are dominating in other sports. Youth hockey numbers may be declining, loosening generational ties to the game. Yet, nothing still spurs deep national anxiety like hockey failure. So yes, yet another Cup hoisted in the US – in Florida, again, no less – certainly stings a little from a nationalist point of view for Canadians. It fulfils all the worst nightmares of 1992's sports writers. But the Oilers' loss is frankly more frustrating strictly from a hockey perspective. Taken together, the Oilers' undisciplined play, general lack of offence, uneven goaltending, and lacklustre defence in the clutch, made it not only difficult to believe they could win, but that they even should. The Panthers are a scary-good hockey club, with a roster filled with pure gamers, the likes of which other teams only have one or two. Florida play an aggressive, often suffocating offence, and are backed by elite goaltending. The Panthers play great hockey. They just happen to be in Florida. There may not be a lot else to it. Advertisement It may be, in fact, that the quality of hockey in south Florida is so high because of, rather than in spite of, all that marketing and money and commercialization the NHL welcomed in the early 1990s. Expansion meant that the league – and by extension, the game – had to find a way to appeal to new audiences, most of whom had been living just fine without it until then. This meant that the NHL had to rethink its product. It had to embrace something much of the hockey world still often reflexively rejects – change. Over the decades, the NHL gradually morphed hockey into something new. Along the way, the game lost some aspects, like enforcers, but added things like goals. It got faster, more finessed, more exciting, more watchable, even as some argued it was somehow softer. It hasn't always gone smoothly (it's worth mentioning here that Atlanta is looking to get a new team for the third time), but its audiences and profits also grew, more or less according to plan. And so far, hockey hasn't lost its Canadian identity. After the NHL's buzzy, highly commercialized Four Nations tournament this past spring, it may even be more entrenched than ever. Looking back now, it's clear that the cynical, calculated marketing — and of course the money — were indeed the point of the NHL's expansion to a place like Florida. But they didn't destroy hockey. Instead, it just keeps getting better.
Business Insider
12-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
An LA couple moved to Mexico to avoid deportation. They racked up $20K in debt, but are feeling more hopeful they can build a life together.
Alfredo Linares moved to Mexico with his wife Raegan Kline due to deportation fears in the U.S. The couple left Los Angeles with $20,000 in debt after closing their Japanese barbecue pop-up restaurant. After several months of instability, the two are finally finding some footing in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. When Raegan Kline and Alfredo Linares married last summer, their dream felt straightforward and simple: start a Japanese barbecue pop-up restaurant in Los Angeles and live happily ever after. But all of that changed in the fall when President Donald Trump, who had promised mass deportations on the campaign trail, won reelection. Linares, who had worked his way up in fine dining to become a cook in a Michelin Star restaurant, arrived in the US as a teenager at 19 with his family and has lived here illegally ever since. Kline, a US citizen, was stricken with worry that at any moment, her husband could be arrested and deported. "I really didn't feel safe," Kline said. "Every morning I would wake up saying, 'If we don't go and something happens to him, I'll never be able to forgive myself.' " In March, the couple moved from Culver City to Linare's birth country of Mexico in hopes of improving their chances of building a future together. "I lived in the shadows for 20 years," Linares said. "I'm 38 years old, so I don't think I have 10 more years of living in the shadows when I'm trying to build a business and grow as a family, as an entrepreneur." Do you have a story to share about moving or immigration? Reach out to this reporter at jdeng@ Going into debt to move to Mexico The couple received around $10,000 in cash from their parents as a wedding gift. They had originally hoped to use the money to hire a lawyer to help Linares gain citizenship, but they wrestled with the best way to use the money to secure a future together. "Do we really go ahead and gamble and trust this administration with this $10,000 that our parents gave us for our wedding gifts, or do we use that $10,000 to move to Mexico?" Kline said of their dilemma. But even the wedding gift wasn't enough to help them break even and start fresh in Mexico. The pair took on debt to start their Japanese barbecue business last spring. While they tried to get it off the ground, their bills ballooned to over $20,000. They raised over $4,000 online through GoFundMe to help them with their relocation. Since the move, they've attempted to find jobs in hospitality, but because Linares doesn't have an identification card and Kline doesn't have work authorization as a temporary resident, it's been difficult to pay the bills. "We're not earning an income," Kline said. "We have all of that stress and try to keep our credit card in a reasonable place and keep ourselves on a budget." Adjusting to life in a new country The biggest hurdle for them has been navigating the deluge of paperwork and bureaucracy in a new country. "I'm very Americanized," Linares said. "Yes, I'm Mexican, but I haven't been here for 20 years. It's totally different from the Mexico I left." From needing a physical copy of a birth certificate to struggling to establish Linares' permanent residence, it's been hard for him to get an ID card when they were first living in Airbnbs in Mexico City. "I need my ID, but I cannot have an ID because I don't have a home address. And I can't get a home address because I don't have a job, because I don't have an ID," Linares said of the frustrating situation. Now they are renting an apartment in Puerto Vallarta in the state of Jalisco, where they've been finally settling in over the past three weeks. "I feel like myself a little bit more," Kline said of the stability. "I'm realizing that this is where we live, this is our home. We're not on vacation." Kline is now able to see past the trials of the past few months and look toward the future with more hope. They've since brought down their rescue dog Dolly Love from Los Angeles to live with them in Mexico. "I do believe we made the right choice," Kline said. "I do believe that there's opportunity here. I do believe in my husband and his talents and his skills." The move to Mexico has tested their relationship and challenged them in many different ways, but Linares said the core of their bond hasn't been shaken. They keep a routine of checking in with each other over coffee every morning. "She makes things easier, and it's because of the communication that we have," Linares said of his wife.
