The Tri-County Fair and Stampede had a little bit of everything over the Labor Day weekend, as young cowboys and cowgirls competed in the Great Basin Youth Challenge on Friday, Sept. 4, and Saturday, Sept. 5, at the Winnemucca Events Complex.
The Los Angeles Lakers are going to the conference finals for the first time in a decade, ending the longest drought in franchise history. LeBron James is going there for the first time since 2018. For him, that also qualifies as ending a drought. James scored 29 points and the Lakers wrapped up their first trip to the Western Conference finals since 2010 by topping the Houston Rockets 119-96 on Saturday night in Game 5 at Walt Disney World.
Whether it was at Winged Foot where Phil Mickelson lost his best chance to win the U.S. Open is up for debate. It certainly was the most memorable, if not spectacular. A tee shot off the hospitality tent that caromed into yellow grass that had been trampled by a week’s worth of spectators. A 3-iron that struck a tree. A shot that started between hospitality chalets and trees and hooked only far enough to catch a buried lie in the bunker left of the green. An explosion shot that raced off the green into 6 inches of rough.
The marquee National Finals Rodeo is moving this year from Las Vegas to Arlington, Texas, due to coronavirus restrictions, event officials announced Wednesday. Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association and Texas Rangers officials said the Western horse sports championship will be held Dec. 3-12 at Globe Life Field, a retractable-roof stadium that opened this year and seats more than 40,000 people.
Steve Nash was one of the NBA’s most entertaining point guards, the engineer of a high-scoring team that helped usher in a new era of basketball. Now the Brooklyn Nets want to see what he can do as a coach. The Nets hired Nash on Thursday, putting the Hall of Famer in charge of the team that hopes to have Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving together next season.
Signing Tom Brady was just a start for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who continue to assemble a star-studded cast around the six-time Super Bowl champion. Leonard Fournette is the latest high-profile addition to an already potent offense bolstered by Brady luring his favorite target, Rob Gronkowski, out of retirement. Former Eagles, Bills and Chiefs running back LeSean McCoy decided he’d like to help the three-time NFL MVP be successful with his new team, too.
It’s tempting to pick against the New England Patriots this year. It really is. The up-and-coming Buffalo Bills have emerged as a popular pick to dethrone Bill Belichick’s bunch atop the AFC East. And, on paper, it certainly seems reasonable.
The heat is on — and the games haven’t even kicked off yet. That’s life in the NFL for some coaches who enter the regular season knowing they need to guide their squads through what will be a most unusual regular season, and at least keep them in playoff contention into December. Some might even need to reach the postseason to avoid the unemployment line. While there’s still so much uncertainty outside the football fields because of the coronavirus pandemic, these coaches can count on getting plenty of attention for their work on NFL sidelines this season:
The Winnemucca Ladies Golf Club played a Gross/Net Tournament for “Rally for a Cure” last week. The ladies playing gave some extra dollars to go to a local cause. The consensus from the club was to donate the extra dollars this year to the Lorena Bengoa Cancer Walk. Sixteen players competed for either Low Gross or Low Net in each of the three flights.
The Jacksonville Jaguars have waived running back Leonard Fournette, a stunning decision that gets the team closer to purging Tom Coughlin’s tenure. The team spent months trying to trade the fourth overall pick in the 2017 NFL draft. But no one expected Jacksonville to part ways with him less than two weeks before the opener.
Back in April, an on-schedule U.S. Open simply did not seem possible. The coronavirus was at its peak in New York; a building on the tournament grounds housing indoor tennis courts was converted to a field hospital. The pandemic was locking down much of society, including sports. Wimbledon was canceled for the first time in 75 years, the French Open was postponed, and the U.S. Tennis Association said it was considering “the possibility” of changing its dates, too. On Monday, the last day of August, the 2020 U.S. Open will, indeed, begin — as scheduled, albeit without any spectators, and with one player dropped from the field because he tested positive for COVID-19.
Even with a pair of silver trophies in his possession, Jon Rahm still couldn’t believe what happened Sunday in the BMW Championship. And he only saw half of it. Rahm was on the range on the other side of the Olympia Fields clubhouse, preparing for a playoff that no one really expected, when Dustin Johnson rolled in a 45-foot birdie putt down the ridge for birdie to force a playoff. Moments later, Rahm faced a putt even longer and more difficult on the 18th — just outside 65 feet that he had to send at nearly a 90-degree angle to the top of the ridge. From there, it was a replay of Johnson’s putt as it headed down the slope, kissed off the pin and disappeared into the cup. “I still can’t believe what just happened,” he said.
Modified racers from around the West were busy last weekend with four races in three days with the Northern Nevada Modified Tour. The action started Friday night in Fallon and moved to Winnemucca and Battle Mountain on Saturday. The Winnemucca race was ran in the morning and Battle Mountain in the evening. The tour concluded on Sunday in Elko. Battle Mountain had 57 entries.
