Browsing: mistake

EDMONTON — The narrative that Connor McDavidâ€s new contract somehow lights a fresh fire under Edmonton Oilers management to surround him with a contending, winning roster should not survive the reality check.

The Oilers have been to two straight Stanley Cup Finals, losing in seven and six games. In the last five years, theyâ€ve played more playoff games — won more playoff games — than every NHL team not named the Florida Panthers.

Theyâ€ve played more playoff games in the past five years than their opening night opponent, the Calgary Flames, have played in the past 20 seasons. Ditto the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Edmonton Oilers are a contender, and have been for some while.

So, why does it feel like theyâ€re suddenly on the clock?

“I think the Edmonton Oilers are on the clock,†said head coach Kris Knoblauch.

Let him explain: “Anytime a team is good, there’s a point where it expires, because the players move on, or get older. (This) team is in a position to succeed because we’ve got a good team, a good group of players, but also because we’ve got a situation where Connor is allowing the team a little more flexibility to address needs.â€

McDavidâ€s new deal is unprecedented, as a 28-year-old superstar in the prime of his career has volunteered to forego a raise and sign an extension for the exact same salary of $12.5 million that he currently earns. As the cap rises, the Oilers will have roughly $6 million in extra dollars each season to spend on players who can help get this thing over the top in Edmonton, once and for all.

But the backside of that is, McDavid is Oilers†property for only three more playoff runs. If they havenâ€t had a parade on Jasper Avenue by then, youâ€ve got to think itâ€s sayonara, McJesus.

“I think everyone understands the situation this room and this organization is in,†McDavid said, on the eve of Wednesdayâ€s season opener, speaking to a giant scrum of reporters in front of his dressing room stall. “We want to win, top to the bottom. Top to the bottom.

“If (this contract) lends urgency, that’s a good byproduct, I guess.â€

As a guy who has spent the better part of the last 35 years writing about this Oilers franchise, I can tell you that there really isnâ€t anything unique left to chronicle here — short of a Stanley Cup.

No writer in any North American sport that we are aware of can say theyâ€ve covered the best player in the game signing a contract that was no richer than the last at this point in his career — and now you can check that box.

“Heâ€s the cornerstone of this organization, the biggest piece that needed to get done,†said Oilers defenceman Jake Walman, whose seven-year deal announced Monday was completely overshadowed by the McDavid contract. “Itâ€s incredible — he could ask for whatever he wanted money-wise.

“When I heard the number, I was like, ‘What an effin†captain we have.â€â€

So whatâ€s left, after two Western Conference championships, all the Art Ross and Hart Trophies, and the feats of magnificence that both McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have provided? There is simply one thing that remains to be done here.

“Realistically, you only need one year. If you play it well, you’re giving yourself a chance,†Draisaitl said on Tuesday. “Weâ€ve got three years to do what we’re chasing, and to get to the ultimate goal.â€

McDavid did not dispute that going to unrestricted free agency next summer had not been a consideration.

“I said everything was on the table, and I meant it,†he said. “But ultimately, our hearts are here in Edmonton. Our hearts are here with the core guys, with the guys in this room, and obviously the city. The fans are important to us, and we want to win here. We want to we want to bring it back here and make our city proud.

“The guys in the room, we’ve been through a lot together. (I want to) see it through together.â€

It was, by all accounts, McDavid and agent Judd Moldaver who came to the table with a zero-raise, two-year deal. Oilers GM Stan Bowman simply had the deal papered, signed it, and will now work toward building a team that McDavid simply cannot bear to walk away from three years from now.

How did he arrive at $12.5 million?

“We weren’t going to sign a long-term deal. So, two years at that number makes a lot of sense,†McDavid said. “It gives us a chance to extend our window here in Edmonton, and Lenny (his dog) is not going to go hungry with that money. We’ll be fine.

“Itâ€s about winning.â€

Edmonton, youâ€re on the clock.

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It’d be great of we could hit every green in regulation, but unfortunately that’s simply not possible. Heck, even the best players in the world don’t hit everygreen. In 2025, the average GIR percentage on the PGA Tour was just under 66 percent, meaning even the best of the best found themselves scrambling about a third of the time.

When you think about it like that, it’s obvious why short game is so important. Golf is not a game of perfect, so learning how to recover from your mistakes is crucial.

Missing a green in regulation is one of the most common mistakes a golfer can make, but it can easily be rectified if you’ve got a solid short game. If you can get up-and-down at a decent clip, missing greens won’t hurt your scorecard quite so much.

In the video below, GOLF Teacher to Watch Parker McLachlin, aka the Short Game Chef, explains an easy way to improve your short game by fixing mistakes in your takeaway.

Fix this takeaway mistake

When I had a quick lesson with McLachlin at last winter’s GOLF Top 100 Teacher Summit, one concept he explained continues to stick with me. With short-game shots, there are two distinct families of techniques. One is the pitching and chipping motion, which is similar to a putting stroke, and the other is the flop and bunker motion, which involves more wrist action.

For many shots we face around the greens, the pitching and chipping motion is all you need to get the ball close. And to properly execute the shots, all you need to do is focus on rocking your shoulder back and forth, much like a putting stroke.

This can be difficult for many recreational players to get the hang of. Having quiet wrists is not something they are used to when hitting shots around the greens.

That’s why the video above from McLachlin can be so helpful. In order to achieve those “quiet wrists,” all you need to do is focus on your takeaway.

“I want to feel low on this takeaway and wide,” he says. “I don’t want to feel vertical and narrow.”

By taking the club back low and wide, you’re forcing yourself to keep your wrists quiet and shallowing your angle of attack. And in doing so, you are guarding against digging the leading edge into the ground and chunking the shot.

“However I take this thing away, that’s pretty much how I’m going to deliver it into the ball,” McLachlin says.

By mastering this low and wide takeaway, you’ll quickly improve your short game, get up-and-down more and shoot lower scores.

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Tiffany Stratton defeated challengers Nia Jax and Jade Cargill to extent her WWE Women’s Championship reign on “WWE SmackDown, but that match didn’t end without controversy, as it ended on a major botch that saw the referee fail to make the three count despite Jax failing to kick out of a Stratton pinfall. Following the controversy, Bully Ray explained who he believes is at fault.

“In wrestling it’s better to be early than to be late,” Bully said during an episode of “Busted Open Radio,” noting that the botched sequence began when Stratton was late breaking up a Cargill pinfall on Jax with a dropkick. This led to Jax kicking out, but Stratton hit the dropkick anyway and covered, with Jax then failing to kick out of Stratton’s pin. The ref, however, swiped her hand away on the third count rather than count the three and end the match.

“The ref swiped on three because she clearly does not think that this is the finish,” Bully said. “What I think was supposed to happen was that Tiffany Stratton was supposed to steal the victory from Jade Cargill. Jade hits the Black Hole Slam, one, two — Tiffany hits the [dropkick], and then covers and gets the 1-2-3 … You can’t be a 100% positive of who makes the mistake; whether it’s the ref or Nia not kicking out … If Tiffany is supposed to steal the win, why did the ref swipe on three?”

After co-host Dave LaGreca expressed that he believed the mistake lies with the referee and not with Jax, Bully agreed — for the most part.

‘There’s obviously miscommunication there’

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“Nia didn’t kick,” Bully continued. “In that situation, the referee’s responsibility is to count to three. Now, we go past that. This is what the most puzzling part of the match is. I can deal with mistakes … it’s gonna happen, it can happen to anybody. What I don’t understand is why Nia decides to have a conversation with the referee.”

Bully was referring to what happened after the ref swiped her hand, when Jax could be seen raising her head to communicate with the ref before performing an exaggerated kick-out long after it made any sense.

“There’s obviously miscommunication there,” Bully said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen blatant [mis]communication like I saw there … You have to be a little bit more aware, especially in 2025 with high definition-cameras and cameras all over the place, that that conversation is being picked up.”

Bully reiterated his belief that “the planned finish was for Tiffany Stratton to steal the victory from Jade, because that would be good heat. If it’s just the moonsault, what’s the big deal?” He then suggested that he would have made the spot simpler, having Stratton toss Cargill out of the ring before making the cover, rather than relying on someone with Stratton’s relative lack of experience to get the timing exactly right on the dropkick.

“I don’t know if I would rely on Tiffany to have that split-second timing to hit that [dropkick] just as the three-count is starting,” he said.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit “Busted Open Radio” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

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FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – Sunday at the Ryder Cup only confirmed what we believed on Saturday night: Luke Donald is a brilliant captain and sublime tactician and we are still not sure about Keegan Bradley.

The second-guessing and American handwringing began even before Shane Lowry finished his victory dance after assuring Europe retained the cup and, as is always the case at the Hindsight Cup, Bradley’s captaincy was atop every list.

It will not help Bradley’s legacy that he ran up against the greatest captain in the history of the matches, either for Europe or the United States, or that his American team was utterly thrashed for two days of team play by a dozen Europeans that will likely go down as the Continent’s best.

Criticism comes with the job and Bradley knows this. He also knew in the honest moments that followed the American’s 15-13 loss that much of his criticism he’d come by honestly.

“We tried to set the course up to help our team. Obviously it wasn’t the right decision,†Bradley acknowledged. “I definitely made a mistake on the course setup. I should have listened a little bit more to my intuition. For whatever reason, that wasn’t the right way to set the course up.

“The greens were as soft as I’ve ever seen greens without it raining. Especially here, it can get pretty firm, and they never firmed up.â€

This American team — peppered with players who have thrived on the most demanding layouts — needed a U.S. Open-style Bethpage. At the very least, the U.S. team needed a PGA Championship-like Bethpage. Instead, the layout that Bradley & Co. concocted more resembled a Barclays Bethpage, the softer-side venue that hosted the PGA Tour playoff event twice.

Bradley hacked the rough to just 2 inches and heavy rains on the eve of the matches left unexpectedly slow greens. For a team that included Bryson DeChambeau, a two-time U.S. Open winner; Scottie Scheffler, a player whose game is built for major championships; and J.J. Spaun, the reigning U.S. Open champion, it was a glaring miss for the captain.

The softer side of Bethpage was particularly troubling during foursomes play, with the Europeans posting 5- and 7-under rounds to dominate both sessions and collect six out of eight points.

“We sat, or I did, and looked at a lot of info. We thought this was the best way to set the golf course up to win. You look at past Ryder Cups, and that’s kind of how it goes,†Bradley said. “You know, sometimes, you’ve got to make a decision on what to do, and you know, if I could go back, I probably would have changed that.â€

Europe entered Sunday singles at Bethpage Black leading by seven points before the U.S. gave the visitors everything they had in what ended a 15-13 European victory.

But short grass and soft greens were not the captain’s only faux pas.

Before this week’s competition, the Europeans had outscored the American team by six points in foursomes play while the Americans had a six-point advantage over the Continent in fourballs. With that historical context, starting with the home team’s stronger format would have seemed like the play to build moment and maximize the frenzied crowd, but Bradley began both Friday and Saturday with alternate shot.

The Europeans dominated both sessions, essentially taking the crowd out of the equation early.

Bradley also seemed married to a game plan that left the U.S. team in a 5 ½-to-2 ½ hole after Day 1. Instead of pivoting on Day 2, he went with almost the same lineup early Saturday to the exact same result, a 3-1 rout.

Collin Morikawa and Harris English — who had been rolled on Friday morning, 5 and 4, by Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood — were sent back out on Saturday and lost to the same team, 3 and 2.

Rinse and repeat.

Bradley also seemed flummoxed by the injury to Europe’s Viktor Hovland which required the captain to sit a player who had been placed in the archaic “envelope†(he chose English). There’s no easy way to make that decision, but English wasn’t the American team’s worse performer statistically and he was also an automatic qualifier, which should factor into that decision.

This is how the 45th Ryder Cup played out at Bethpage Black over the course of five sessions with Europe winning on the road, 15-13.

“I think anytime you’re the leader of a team or the captain or the coach, or whatever, we talked about this last night, you’re going to get the accolades and you need to take the blame for when things don’t go well,†he said.

To be fair, Bradley made plenty of inspired moves starting with his decision not to pick himself to play the matches. Although he should have been on the team by nearly every metric, he put the team first.

He also deftly adjusted some of his plans on the fly, like sending Cameron Young out with Bryson DeChambeau in the first foursomes match on Day 2. They rolled to a 4-and-2 victory over Matt Fitzpatrick and Ludvig Åberg for the U.S. side’s only point in the session.

Bradley could also take a modicum of credit for the spirited American comeback on Sunday, but ultimately that rally fell short giving way to the Draconian truth of being a Ryder Cup captain — all that matters is winning.

Peter Kramer/Getty Images

In 2001, WCW’s television shows were canceled by its parent company, and all of the promotion’s assets were sold to WWE. While the acquisition did not automatically include talent contracts, WWE had the option of buying out willing performers and bringing them over. Once the deal was done, Vince McMahon began signing a significant number of those former WCW stars in preparation for a major storyline. Fulfilling the fantasies of countless wrestling fans, WWE intended to stage a WCW Invasion.

Sadly, it wouldn’t turn out the way most had hoped, and is today remembered as a mistake by most fans. After Shane McMahon first announced on TV that he’d acquired WCW in March, the full Invasion didn’t begin until months later. Lance Storm became the first WCW performer to debut that May, and though Storm is a perfectly capable wrestler, the moment was indicative of the entire storyline.Â

Most of WCW’s biggest names wouldn’t be involved, and the storyline instead became wrapped up in the McMahon family soap opera. Many of the performers on WCW’s side were midcarders, or had a tenuous connection to the company. There were some exciting additions who took part, such as Booker T, but it soon became evident people like Sting and Goldberg weren’t showing up right away. Even the addition of ECW stars like Rob Van Dam couldn’t salvage the mess.

The WCW Invasion sputters to an end

M. Tran/Getty Images

Before the storyline culminated towards the end of 2001, there were some odd bumps in the road. Vince McMahon made the decision that summer to integrate WCW branding into parts of “WWE Raw,” complete with new graphics and commentators. However, he never fully committed to the idea, likely because the reaction to the first segment was horrendous. As a result of the poor crowd reactions, the WCW side became the heels, opposing a heroic coalition of WWE wrestlers.

In one of the most baffling decisions made during the invasion, the company had “Stone Cold” Steve Austin defect to the WCW team at the Invasion pay-per-view, maintaining his position as a heel after faking out fans to believe he’d turned face again. As the year wore on, the story grew more and more convoluted and nonsensical. A decision was made to end the invasion at Survivor Series in November. In the end, the last two people left in the ring were Austin and The Rock, meaning that the hyped-up WCW Invasion concluded with WWE’s two biggest stars.

In the years since, there are few who deny that the storyline did not live up to its potential. From the illogical plot to the lack of notable WCW names, the Invasion is a storyline that will go down in history for its wasted potential.

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