Bleacher Report: Phil Mickelson Stays Dangerous After Day 1 of 2014 US Open Despite Distractions

By Art Spander
Featured Columnist

PINEHURST, N.C. — Think of a golf tournament as a mile race. Each round is a lap. You don’t have to lead the first day or first two or three days, but you’d better stay close, better not fall too far off the pace. The key is to stay within striking distance.

On the first day of the 2014 U.S. Open, Phil Mickelson, carrying the largest burden — and drawing the largest crowds — did just that.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc.

Bleacher Report: Shaggy Pinehurst to Offer a Stiff New Test at 2014 US Open

By Art Spander
Featured Columnist

PINEHURST, N.C. — It’s not enjoyable. The U.S. Open, the golfing championship of the United States, was never meant to be.

It was meant to be a challenge, a terror, agony. It was meant to be difficult, very difficult.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc.

Bleacher Report: Rory McIlroy Focused on Bringing the Buzz Back to His Golf at 2014 US Open

By Art Spander
Featured Columnist

PINEHURST, N.C. — He was wearing green and, on the practice tee, wearing out what seemed like a gross of golf balls. Oh it was hot, 93 degrees, but Rory McIlroy, after what he’s been through of late, the lows, the highs, wasn’t going be deterred by the weather.

Or anything else.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc. 

Bleacher Report: Rafael Nadal Competing Against History After 9th French Open Title

By Art Spander
Featured Columnist

He is playing against history now, against the men who preceded him, against Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg, against Pete Sampras and certainly Roger Federer. And Rafael Nadal, French Open champion once more, also is playing against himself.

Each match and each tournament, especially any of the four Grand Slams, is a measuring stick, an evaluation of where he ranks among the great ones, and there have been many in the decades stretching back more than a century.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc. 

Bleacher Report: Triple Crown Mystique Lives on as California Chrome Falls Short at 2014 Belmont

By Art Spander
Featured Columnist

Such an impossible dream — a bargain-basement $8,000 horse, virtually flying in, some sort of mythical Pegasus, to take the Triple Crown and save the troubled sport of racing.

"A fairy tale," said one of the colt's owners, Steve Coburn. But in this tale the wolf blows down the brick house. In this tale the frog never becomes a prince.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc.