Browsing: intrigue

Spirit top Thorns to reach NWSL final as Rodman return adds off-field intrigue | NWSL

Gift Monday and Croix Bethune scored and the Washington Spirit beat the Portland Thorns 2-0 on Saturday to advance to the National Womenâ€s Soccer League championship game.

With the win, the Spirit will play in their second consecutive NWSL final next weekend in San Jose, California. They will face the winner of Sundayâ€s semi-final between Gotham FC and the Orlando Pride.

It will be the fourth championship appearance in Spirit history. Last season, the Spirit were defeated 1-0 by the Pride.

The Spiritâ€s opening goal was sparked by a Thorns corner kick in the 27th minute. The counterattack was created by Rosemounde Kouassi, who sprinted 80 yards before laying the ball off for Monday to tap in from a yard out to make it 1-0.

It was the sixth time this season that Kouassi had assisted Monday, and also the second consecutive playoff game the duo have combined.

Thorns goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold did her best to keep the score down for the visitors and finished with six saves, including two athletic back-to-back saves in the 56th and 57th minutes.

Spirit forward Sofia Cantore missed an opportunity to make it 2-0 when she hit the post with the Spiritâ€s best chance of the second half in the 69th minute.

But Bethune sealed the 2-0 win when she broke free in space in the 83rd. Just inside the Thorns half, the 24-year-old midfielder took a touch past an onrushing Arnold and dribbled through onto the empty net to finish with an easy strike.

US womenâ€s national team forward Trinity Rodman made her return from a knee injury in the 90th minute, subbing in for Cantore. Rodman almost made it 3-0 in the sixth minute of second half stoppage time, but her low strike from inside the box went just wide of the post.

The semi-final was played in front of a sell-out crowd of 19,365 at Audi Field in Washington DC. It is the second consecutive year the Spirit has hosted a NWSL playoff semifinal, and the fourth consecutive playoff game the team has had a sell-out.

Rodmanâ€s return also came amid fresh uncertainty about her future with the Spirit. The 23-year-old is out of contract next month and, according to ESPN, has been weighing significantly higher offers from Europe since the summer.

NWSL teams are restricted by a $3.5m salary cap, limiting what Washington can put on the table. Several top clubs abroad face no such constraints and are prepared to offer far larger deals. Negotiations to keep Rodman in the league have stalled as a result.

ESPN reported that Rodmanâ€s representatives have spoken directly with NWSL leadership about possible cap-workarounds to retain marquee players. Any change would require approval from team owners and is not considered close.

For Washington, it means Saturday may have been Rodmanâ€s final home appearance unless an agreement is reached. Her late cameo after a month out was greeted with one of the loudest ovations of the night, a reminder of both her value to the Spirit and the stakes surrounding her next move.

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LIV Golf and Saudi PIF intrigue. And Lee Trevinoâ€s top 3

Welcome! Where are you, you ask. I’m calling this the Weekend 9. Think of it as a spot to warm you up for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We’ll have thoughts. We’ll have tips. We’ll have tweets. But just nine in all, though sometimes maybe more and sometimes maybe less. As for who I am? The paragraphs below tell some of the story. I can be reached atnick.piastowski@golf.com.

A new format. A comment by Rory McIlroy on the new format. A comment by Lee Westwood on  Rory McIlroy’s comment. An adjusted qualifying event. A new LPGA tournament. And a few other items, all since Monday, during the first full week of November no less. LIV Golf and its primary backer flooded your news feeds this week, interestingly and undoubtedly so.

Let’s break out another 9 for the 9 to try to make sense of everything.

9 for the 9 headline No. 1: “LIV Golf’s sudden shift from 54 to 72 holes is a major-driven stunner.” (Story here.)

The news: LIV’s format is changing from 54 holes to 72.

The takeaway: GOLF’s Dylan Dethier also wrote about the move here, and I’ll just add these questions:

Will the move make you care more about LIV? Will you be interested that LIV may soon receive world ranking points, which presumably was one of the reasons behind the format change? Will you be interested that LIV pros may have a better pathway to major championships, should they receive the world ranking points? Will you be interested that a few more pros may sign on with LIV, should they receive the world ranking points and thus improved access to majors?

9 for the 9 headline No. 2: “‘Peculiar move:’ Rory McIlroy left with more questions than answers by LIV Golf’s change.” (Story here.)

The news: On Wednesday, ahead of this week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, McIlroy said this: “I think what’s hard is you’ve got the LIV guys, and say potentially they get world rankings, but because their strength of fields are going to be so weak because a lot of the guys have fallen already in the rankings because they have not had ranking points for so long, I don’t know if the ranking points are really going to benefit them. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.”

The takeaway: It will be interesting. The OWGR also was revised a few years back, and it now includes a metric called “Strokes Gained World Rating,” which you can read more about here in this story written by GOLF’s Sean Zak.

9 for the 9 headline No. 3: “Lee Westwood jabs Rory McIlroy over comments on LIV Golf’s rules change.” (Story here.)

The news: On talkSport’s Breakfast Show, Westwood said this In response to McIlroy: “I don’t know. I don’t pay too much attention to what Rory says, really. He’ll change his mind next week.”

The takeaway: Ooh!

9 for 9 headline No. 4: “Tyrrell Hatton says LIV pros ‘initially’ rejected format shift in poll.” (Story here.)

Greg Norman and Scott O'Neil of LIV Golf.

With LIV changing formats, what does ‘LIV’ actually stand for?

By:

Dylan Dethier

The news: On Wednesday, ahead of this week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, Tyrrell Hatton said this: “I think it’s a good thing that LIV have moved to four rounds. I know at the end of my first season, there was a questionnaire that was filled out, and one of the questions was about moving to 72 holes, and I think of everyone that filled it out, I think there was only three guys initially that had said about moving there. I guess that’s changed quite a bit in the last year, and certainly from my standpoint, I’m quite happy that we’ve moved to 72 holes.”

The takeaway: I wonder what changed.

9 for 9 headline No. 5: “‘Checks every box’: New LPGA commissioner makes bold move.” (Story here.)

The news: The LPGA is co-sanctioning an event with the Ladies European Tour, and it will be backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund. It will be played at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas.

The takeaway: Do you like that the LPGA and new commissioner Craig Kessler are delivering a big-money tournament? Do you dislike that the LPGA and Kessler are doing so with the Saudis (whose human rights record, according to Amnesty International, can be found here)?

9 for 9 headline No. 6: “LIV Golf adds new qualifying route with Q-school tweak.” (Story here.)

The news:LIV Golf will play its qualifying tournament in Florida, moving it from Saudi Arabia.

The takeaway: This should allow for more to enter the event, which will award LIV playing status to two players. But …

9 for 9 headline No. 7: “The PGA Tour has a problem with LIV Golf’s 2026 qualifier.” (Story here.)

The news: The PGA Tour said the LIV qualifier will be deemed as an unauthorized event, meaning players with (and without) Tour status who participate will be penalized. Kudos to Sports Illustrated’s Bob Harig for seeking the Tour’s reaction to LIV moving the event.

The takeaway: There’ll be curiosity around the tee sheet, for sure.

9 for 9 headline No. 8: “‘Opportunity to come together’: LIV CEO reveals talks with new PGA Tour CEO.” (Story here.)

The news: While at ​​Sportico’s Invest in Sports Conference, LIV CEO Scott O’Neil says he has had talks with PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp about the future of pro golf. “Generally we have a common view on what could be or should be the landscape of golf over the next several years,” O’Neil said. “There’s an opportunity for the whole golf world to come together and grow this pie.”

The takeaway: But will the golf world come together?

9 for 9 No. 9: LIV is a content machine. And some folks will tell you any news is good news.

Let’s see if we can find eight more items for the Weekend 9.

One takeaway for the weekend

2. In response to a story from financial publication Hunterbrook that alleges Phil Mickelson received inside information on an offshore company, Mickelson tweeted this Friday:

A takeaway from the week that was

3. Who does Lee Trevino rank as his top three golfers of all time — and his best player? He answered that this week on SiriusXM’s “A New Breed of Golf with Michael Breed,” and the audio of his answer is below.

An instruction thought for the weekend

4. The post below, from Dr. Peter Tiereny, was very interesting.

A stat that interests me

5. I thought this stat below from stats guru Justin Ray was good:

Another stat that interests me

6. And I thought this stat below from Ray was good:

One more stat that interests me

7. I also thought this stat below from Ray was good (and yes, you also should follow Ray on X):

A heartwarming thought

8.The story below from ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt was good:

A fall golf trip thought

9. So about my fall golf trip a couple of weeks ago …

As the picture below shows, things went wrong for my friend.

Scorecard
My friend’s scorecard.

Nick Piastowski

What golf is on TV this weekend?

10. Let’s do 10 items! Here’s a rundown of golf on TV this weekend:

– Saturday

10:30 p.m. (Friday) – 1:30 a.m. ET: Toto Japan Classic third round, Golf Channel

2 a.m.-8 a.m. ET: Abu Dhabi Championship third round, Golf Channel

3 p.m.-6 p.m. ET: World Wide Technology Championship third round, Golf Channel

– Sunday

10 p.m. (Saturday) – 1 a.m. ET: Toto Japan Classic final round, Golf Channel

1:30 a.m.-7:30 a.m. ET: Abu Dhabi Championship final round, Golf Channel

3 p.m.-6 p.m. ET: World Wide Technology Championship final round, Golf Channel

What you’re emailing me

11. Let’s do 11 items! I recently got this email, which was in response to the email I posted in a Weekend 9 a few weeks ago (and can be found here):

Thank you for posting the thoughts shared with you on the 2025 Ryder Cup. Not easy to declare the emperor has no clothes when the emperor holds the money spigot.

I have one word to describe my reaction to that email from ‘across the pond’ regarding the fan behavior at the 2025 Ryder Cup.

“Exactly.”

I was embarrassed and angry to read the details of fan behavior. More angry that it was not more roundly condemned by those American golf experts and players ‘inside the ropes.’

Watching professional golf has been, for my entire life, a polite, adult refuge from the vulgarity of most spectator sports. That is in danger of being lost.

There will always be bad actors at sporting events. It is the very nature of the beast to bring those out. (Fan is short for fanatic, after all.) But, please do everything you can to protect golf from the normalization of bad behavior.

A way you can help someone this weekend

12. To start this item, know that Kelan McDonagh saved a golfer.

A year ago, nothing in the player’s game was working, and he had had enough. He sat down in the cart we were sharing and said that if his play didn’t turn around before the end of the golf season, he would quit. And that gave me this thought: We needed to pair my friend with a top instructor and just watch and take notes. Enter McDonagh, the director of instruction at Metedeconk National Golf Club in Jackson Township, N.J., which is about 60 miles south of New York City. For about three hours, he worked with the golfer, and the golfer left encouraged (and I left with this).

I was thinking of all that this week when I saw that McDonagh had posted about his dad, Larry, who’s battling cancer. And cancer sucks. And cancer care can be expensive, especially in this case. There’s hope, but costs are soaring

Should you be interested in helping at all, a GoFundMe page has been set up, and you can visit it here.