Golf's major season lasts just 101 days. Seems too short, doesn't it?

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🚨 Headlines

🏆 ESPYS recap: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Simone Biles won as best male and female athletes at The ESPYS on Wednesday night. Full list of winners.

🏀 Beal to the Clippers: Bradley Beal agreed to a contract buyout with the Suns, ending his two-year stint in Phoenix. He's expected to join the Clippers on a two-year, $11 million deal with a player option that should make him a free agent next summer.

🏈 Miller to the Commanders: Four months after being released by the Bills, eight-time Pro Bowl edge rusher Von Miller is signing with the Commanders.

🎾 Big Wimbledon ratings: Jannik Sinner's win over Carlos Alcaraz drew an average of 2.9 million viewers, making it the most-watched Wimbledon final since Novak Djokovic beat Roger Federer in 2019.

⛳️ Clark banned from Oakmont: Wyndham Clark has been banned from Oakmont Country Club after damaging a locker out of frustration following his missed cut at this year's U.S. Open.

⛳️ Golf's major season is too short

101 days. That's how long golf's major season will last this year — from the moment Jack Nicklaus hit his ceremonial tee shot at Augusta to the moment the final putt drops on Sunday at the Open Championship. 101 days. 14 weeks. Doesn't seem quite right, does it?

From Yahoo Sports' Jay Busbee:

Golf's major season is a flurry of some of the finest drama and narrative the sports world can conjure … that vanishes just as you've settled into its rhythms. In baseball, 101 days from Opening Day doesn’t even get you to the All-Star break. In the NFL, the 101st day after this year's initial regular-season game falls the day before Week 15.

Golf's most apples-to-apples comparison is with tennis, which — coincidentally enough — also has four majors: Wimbledon, plus the Australian, French and U.S. Opens. However, unlike golf, tennis' Grand Slam events stretch over eight months, from mid-January to September.

The compact major schedule means it's difficult to appreciate the historical resonance of a career-defining win. Golfers don't get a Super Bowl champion parade; they get on a plane and head to their next tournament. The calendar also doesn't allow much of a slow build of anticipation. It's the sports equivalent of bingeing a TV show then waiting through a long, cold winter for the next go-round.

What changes could be made? The tennis model would be nice, allowing for golf to extend its major season from winter all the way through late summer, from an American perspective. Nice, but also unrealistic.

The problem is, there's not really much of an option to alter the golf calendar without doing something truly drastic — or, alternately, pushing around the PGA Championship. Granted, it's been done before; over the course of its 107 contests, the PGA has been played in nine different months — February, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December.

But thanks to football's massive footprint and block-out-the-sun shadow, those last four months are off the table. The Masters owns April. The U.S. and British Opens have claimed June and July. The PGA moved from August back in 2019 because May is far more hospitable for far more courses than August, and because the PGA got tired of relocating for the Olympics every few years.

A move back to February, combined with something exotic — match play, perhaps? — is interesting to contemplate, but the longest of long shots to consider. Alternately, the PGA could move back to August and potentially go international … but again, that requires the PGA to shoulder the burden of extending golf's calendar while the other three majors sit comfortably ensconced in their long-claimed months.

So the reality is, now and for the foreseeable future, we have just four days of major championship golf remaining in the season. Yes, the Ryder Cup and the playoffs await, but there's just one more chance this year for a player to claim, or cement, his legacy. Put the coffee on, you won't want to miss this one. It's a long time until the azaleas bloom again.

🏀 WNBA power rankings at the break

We've officially arrived at the WNBA All-Star break. Here's where each of the league's 13 teams sit in our latest power rankings, courtesy of Cassandra Negley.

1. Phoenix Mercury (15-7): Their first season of the post-Diana Taurasi era is going gangbusters thanks to MVP candidate and Mercury newcomer Alyssa Thomas, who notched her record-extending 16th triple-double* last week followed by a career-high 29 points.

2. New York Liberty (15-6): The defending champions have had an up-and-down campaign, starting 9-0 before dropping six of their next nine. But they've won three straight entering the break, and 2024 Finals MVP Jonquel Jones (ankle) is expected to return next week.

3. Minnesota Lynx (20-4): Perhaps no team needs this break as much as the Lynx, who've played nine games in the last 16 days. They're led by MVP favorite Napheesa Collier, who's averaging career-highs in points (23.2) and blocks (1.6).

4. Golden State Valkyries (10-12): The first expansion team since 2008 has impressed thanks to a defense that allows the second-fewest points in the league. If they keep this up, they could become the WNBA's first expansion team to make the playoffs in their debut season.

5. Indiana Fever (12-11): Their record isn't what anyone expected, but that's what happens when Caitlin Clark misses 10 games to injury and six-time All-Star DeWanna Bonner requests her release a month into her Fever tenure. Can they right the ship in the second half?

6. Atlanta Dream (13-9): First-year head coach Karl Smesko and three-time All-Star Allisha Gray — averaging career-highs in points (18.4), rebounds (5.6) and assists (4) — have the Dream trending toward their first winning season since 2018.

7. Seattle Storm (14-9): They're 5-2 against the league's top-three teams, but just 5-4 in their last nine games, including a baffling loss to the cellar-dwelling Sun. Still, Wednesday's win pushed them into fourth place entering the break.

8. Washington Mystics (11-11): Once looking lost at 5-8, they've rebounded to enter the break with a .500 record. Credit first-year head coach Sydney Johnson and rookie sensations Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen, the lone Mystics to start every game.

9. Las Vegas Aces (11-11): Dynasties can't last forever, right? Three-time MVP A'ja Wilson has dominated as usual, but their defense has fallen from top-five last year to bottom-five this year and they're in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2018.

10. Chicago Sky (7-15): Angel Reese is racking up double-doubles (nine straight and a league-best 15 this season), but that hasn't translated to wins for Chicago, whose defense and offense both rank in the bottom five.

11. Dallas Wings (6-17): Rookie of the Year frontrunner Paige Bueckers has been great, but Dallas' veterans are struggling — none more than Arike Ogunbowale, who has battled injuries and inconsistency amid the worst season of her seven-year career.

12. Los Angeles Sparks (8-14): Their offense, led by former Ace Kelsey Plum, has been solid, but their bottom-three defense kept them from winning two games in a row until this week. Still, progress is progress, and they've already matched last season's win total.

13. Connecticut Sun (3-19): They didn't return a single starter from last year, so what did you expect? The lone bright spot is future Hall of Famer Tina Charles, who at 36 returned to the team where she started her career and leads them in scoring.

*A league of her own: Thomas has more than one-third of all triple-doubles in WNBA history (16 of 44). No one else has more than four (Sabrina Ionescu), and just six other players have more than one: Candace Parker (3), Caitlin Clark (3), Chelsea Gray (2), Courtney Williams (2), Courtney Vandersloot (2), Sheryl Swoopes (2).

🚣 Jimmy Graham crosses the Arctic

Jimmy Graham's 13-year NFL career included five Pro Bowls, 8,545 receiving yards and 89 touchdowns, but nothing he did on the football field was quite as impressive as what he did over the last week-and-a-half in the Arctic Circle.

Mission accomplished: The 38-year-old former tight end and his team completed the Arctic Challenge, rowing 518 nautical miles across the Arctic Ocean in a world record-shattering 10 days. The previous record for a team of four was over 15 days.

• Graham, former U.S. Navy Seal Andrew Tropp, and married couple Hannah and John Huppi (both former Team USA rowers) became the first mixed-gender team of four to row across the Arctic Ocean and raised $1 million to support youth in New Orleans.

• After training for 18 months, the crew set off from Tromsø, Norway, on July 4 and landed in Svalbard (a Norwegian archipelago) on July 14. They rowed nonstop in their 9.6-meter vessel, alternating in two-hour shifts and never sleeping for more than 90 minutes at a time.

Thirst for adventure: Graham, who served as lead navigator during the trip despite the experience of his crewmates, is a bit of an adventure junkie. He owns 10 different aviation licenses and is an avid cyclist, though his next adventure is still to be determined. One option? A return to the NFL. He last played for the Saints in 2023 and never officially retired.

📺 Watchlist: Thursday, July 17

⛳️ The Open Championship | 4am-3:30pm ET, USA/Peacock

The 153rd Open Championship is underway at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, where 156 golfers are competing for the Claret Jug and a $17 million purse in the season's fourth and final major.

Notes:

• The course: Portrush's Dunluce Links, hosting its third Open (1951, 2019), is the only Open venue situated off the UK's mainland. It's also much less flat than most other links courses due to its setting amongst the dunes of the Causeway Coast. Hole-by-hole guide.

• The hometown heroes: Rory McIlroy grew up just an hour away and was the fan favorite back in 2019, but it was his good friend and countryman Shane Lowry who won his only major here six years ago.

• The favorite: This is the only major at which Scottie Scheffler has never finished inside the top three. He enters the week with 10 straight top-10s and the shortest odds to win the tournament since 2015 (+500 at BetMGM).

Groups to watch: A majority of the field is already out there (or in the clubhouse), but three star-studded groups tee off in succession starting at 9:48am: (1) Robert MacIntyre, Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Rose; (2) Jordan Spieth, Ludvig Åberg, Viktor Hovland; (3) Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Tommy Fleetwood.

Plus:

• ⚽️ Women's Euros: England vs. Sweden (3pm, Fox) … The second quarterfinal pits the defending champion Lionesses against the Swedes.

• 🚴 Tour de France: Stage 12 (7:10am, Peacock) … The race enters the Pyrenees today with a 112-mile ride from Auch to Hautacam in southern France.

Today's full slate →

⚽️ Soccer trivia

Question: The 14 teams pictured above played in which now-defunct soccer league?

• North American Soccer League (NASL)

• Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL)

• National Professional Soccer League (NPSL)

• Major Arena Soccer League (MASL)

Answer at the bottom.

📆 July 17, 1990: Bo vs. Deion

35 years ago today, the two greatest multi-sport athletes of the modern era went head-to-head at Yankee Stadium — and they did not disappoint.

• Bo Jackson, in the midst of his fourth consecutive 20-homer season with the Royals, smacked three long balls.

• Deion Sanders, a rookie with the Yankees, hit an inside-the-park home run just past a diving Jackson in center field.

Last dance: Sadly, these two generational athletes never got to replicate the magic of their 1990 encounter. While the younger Deion was just starting out, Bo's time in the NFL ended later that year when he suffered a devastating hip injury. He'd play three more abbreviated MLB seasons before calling it quits in 1994.

Trivia answer: Major Indoor Soccer League (1978-1992)

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